Delivered-To: john.podesta@gmail.com
Received: by 10.140.48.99 with SMTP id n90csp78620qga;
Sun, 10 Aug 2014 11:39:40 -0700 (PDT)
X-Received: by 10.140.37.178 with SMTP id r47mr40898947qgr.59.1407695979787;
Sun, 10 Aug 2014 11:39:39 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path:
Received: from mail-qc0-f198.google.com (mail-qc0-f198.google.com [209.85.216.198])
by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id k61si18468221qgk.48.2014.08.10.11.39.39
for
(version=TLSv1 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA bits=128/128);
Sun, 10 Aug 2014 11:39:39 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: none (google.com: ctrfriendsfamily+bncBCR43OXH6EGBB27YT2PQKGQEXXYXAJQ@americanbridge.org does not designate permitted sender hosts) client-ip=209.85.192.51;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com;
spf=neutral (google.com: ctrfriendsfamily+bncBCR43OXH6EGBB27YT2PQKGQEXXYXAJQ@americanbridge.org does not designate permitted sender hosts) smtp.mail=ctrfriendsfamily+bncBCR43OXH6EGBB27YT2PQKGQEXXYXAJQ@americanbridge.org
Received: by mail-qc0-f198.google.com with SMTP id r5sf4744986qcx.9
for ; Sun, 10 Aug 2014 11:39:39 -0700 (PDT)
X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed;
d=1e100.net; s=20130820;
h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:sender:date:message-id:subject:from
:to:x-original-sender:x-original-authentication-results:precedence
:mailing-list:list-id:list-post:list-help:list-archive
:list-subscribe:list-unsubscribe:content-type;
bh=tmYo3o/0G1qzs02HOV+O0dJEejGQc1MOFN+PTElB6Z0=;
b=azQrx+mE0XgXrjAYTwv0yAIUJb/vDM88V2o3cuz0kc/Hp0MPNJSHd66eZK8xEPUxpl
PZNnjbSh2oefHgIjKuJqn4Tx27VXIBgWAQVXQfZYOEZiGmQsSz5Y+cNiBAzuIKSSd+yn
iNYsjDMmBZSCJ5HJehZKeEc/1A1PmV4Tsp8ncVthmXwrgOz/jPYoylZzXzMYSezDn7f+
8D+WRLu/xg0YWGYpwvksREvMrRpCCvfO0p5RzSAIKcQdz8Ni2NaTjaAhoamOYxdkOfmP
lRkrw66+ZRMJ37cjqJ7S7j4fE/8YCM4cIzXRPLfrseyu+OJBPlSsoJA8tX8fEG5AOusv
5bUg==
X-Gm-Message-State: ALoCoQmNGmRKHFqymiUvWQfd+iiR8LVormXTMnNX3pV0metdrESCuAoYEYSngCSM/BpTCvZEPX/k
X-Received: by 10.236.15.3 with SMTP id e3mr549464yhe.50.1407695979579;
Sun, 10 Aug 2014 11:39:39 -0700 (PDT)
X-BeenThere: ctrfriendsfamily@americanbridge.org
Received: by 10.140.101.210 with SMTP id u76ls574757qge.62.gmail; Sun, 10 Aug
2014 11:39:39 -0700 (PDT)
X-Received: by 10.140.25.11 with SMTP id 11mr42932233qgs.9.1407695979174;
Sun, 10 Aug 2014 11:39:39 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from mail-qg0-f51.google.com (mail-qg0-f51.google.com [209.85.192.51])
by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id 17si18442021qgb.86.2014.08.10.11.39.39
for
(version=TLSv1 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA bits=128/128);
Sun, 10 Aug 2014 11:39:39 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: none (google.com: burns.strider@americanbridge.org does not designate permitted sender hosts) client-ip=209.85.192.51;
Received: by mail-qg0-f51.google.com with SMTP id a108so7908237qge.10
for ; Sun, 10 Aug 2014 11:39:39 -0700 (PDT)
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Received: by 10.224.97.66 with SMTP id k2mr56663362qan.21.1407695978780;
Sun, 10 Aug 2014 11:39:38 -0700 (PDT)
Sender: jchurch@americanbridge.org
X-Google-Sender-Delegation: jchurch@americanbridge.org
Received: by 10.140.94.97 with HTTP; Sun, 10 Aug 2014 11:39:38 -0700 (PDT)
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 14:39:38 -0400
Message-ID:
Subject: Correct The Record Sunday August 10, 2014 Roundup
From: Burns Strider
To: CTRFriendsFamily
X-Original-Sender: burns.strider@americanbridge.org
X-Original-Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=neutral
(google.com: burns.strider@americanbridge.org does not designate permitted
sender hosts) smtp.mail=burns.strider@americanbridge.org
Precedence: list
Mailing-list: list CTRFriendsFamily@americanbridge.org; contact CTRFriendsFamily+owners@americanbridge.org
List-ID:
X-Google-Group-Id: 1010994788769
List-Post: ,
List-Help: ,
List-Archive:
List-Subscribe: ,
List-Unsubscribe: ,
Content-Type: multipart/related; boundary=001a11c3ef46c5978005004ac265
--001a11c3ef46c5978005004ac265
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=001a11c3ef46c5977205004ac264
--001a11c3ef46c5977205004ac264
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
*[image: Inline image 1]*
*Correct The Record Sunday August 10, 2014 Roundup:*
*Headlines:*
*The Atlantic: =E2=80=9CHillary Clinton: 'Failure' to Help Syrian Rebels Le=
d to the
Rise of ISIS=E2=80=9D
*
"Clinton responded to this idea with great enthusiasm: =E2=80=9CThat=E2=80=
=99s how I feel!
Maybe this is old-fashioned.=E2=80=9D And then she seemed to signal that, y=
es,
indeed, she=E2=80=99s planning to run for president. =E2=80=9COkay, I feel =
that this might
be an old-fashioned idea, but I=E2=80=99m about to find out, in more ways t=
han
one.=E2=80=9D"
*Politico: =E2=80=9CHillary Clinton takes on Obama=E2=80=9D
*
=E2=80=9CHillary Clinton has taken her furthest and most public step away f=
rom
President Barack Obama, describing his decision against helping build a
=E2=80=98credible=E2=80=99 force that could battle the Assad regime in Syri=
a early on as a
=E2=80=98failure.=E2=80=99=E2=80=9D
*Politico: =E2=80=9CBarack Obama rebukes Syrian =E2=80=98fantasy=E2=80=99=
=E2=80=9D
*
=E2=80=9CThe president=E2=80=99s interview with op-ed columnist Thomas Frie=
dman, published
online Friday, offered an inherent rebuke of Hillary Clinton, whose memoir
revealed that the former secretary of state wanted to arm moderate Syrian
rebels in the nascent stages of the war. In a newly published interview
with The Atlantic given before Obama=E2=80=99s interview, Hillary Clinton s=
aid the
failure to build a strong rebel force against the Assad regime =E2=80=98lef=
t a big
vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled.=E2=80=99=E2=80=9D
*Politico: =E2=80=9CClinton hint at future fuels 2016 talk=E2=80=9D
*
=E2=80=9CHillary Clinton says she expects her view of America=E2=80=99s rol=
e in the world
to be tested in the future =E2=80=98in more ways than one,=E2=80=99 a comme=
nt fueling
speculation about her presidential ambitions.=E2=80=9D
*Washington Examiner: =E2=80=9CHillary Clinton distances herself from Presi=
dent
Obama's foreign policy=E2=80=9D
*
=E2=80=9CHillary Clinton is stepping away from President Obama on foreign p=
olicy."
*The Hill: =E2=80=9CHillary Clinton: PR battle 'tilted against' Israel=E2=
=80=9D
*
=E2=80=9CFormer Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ratcheted up her languag=
e
supporting America's strongest Middle East ally, saying the world opinion
is =E2=80=98historically tilted against Israel.=E2=80=99=E2=80=9D
*Articles:*
*The Atlantic: =E2=80=9CHillary Clinton: 'Failure' to Help Syrian Rebels Le=
d to the
Rise of ISIS=E2=80=9D
*
By Jeffrey Goldberg
August 10, 2014, 12:01 a.m. EDT
[Subtitle:] The former secretary of state, and probable candidate for
president, outlines her foreign-policy doctrine. She says this about
President Obama's: "Great nations need organizing principles, and 'Don't do
stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle."
President Obama has long-ridiculed the idea that the U.S., early in the
Syrian civil war, could have shaped the forces fighting the Assad regime,
thereby stopping al Qaeda-inspired groups=E2=80=94like the one rampaging ac=
ross
Syria and Iraq today=E2=80=94from seizing control of the rebellion. In an i=
nterview
in February, the president told me that =E2=80=9Cwhen you have a profession=
al army
... fighting against a farmer, a carpenter, an engineer who started out as
protesters and suddenly now see themselves in the midst of a civil
conflict=E2=80=94the notion that we could have, in a clean way that didn=E2=
=80=99t commit
U.S. military forces, changed the equation on the ground there was never
true.=E2=80=9D
Well, his former secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, isn=E2=80=99t =
buying
it. In an interview with me earlier this week, she used her sharpest
language yet to describe the "failure" that resulted from the decision to
keep the U.S. on the sidelines during the first phase of the Syrian
uprising.
=E2=80=9CThe failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the peop=
le who
were the originators of the protests against Assad=E2=80=94there were Islam=
ists,
there were secularists, there was everything in the middle=E2=80=94the fail=
ure to
do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled,=E2=80=9D Cl=
inton
said.
As she writes in her memoir of her State Department years, Hard Choices,
she was an inside-the-administration advocate of doing more to help the
Syrian rebellion. Now, her supporters argue, her position has been
vindicated by recent events.
Professional Clinton-watchers (and there are battalions of them) have told
me that it is only a matter of time before she makes a more forceful
attempt to highlight her differences with the (unpopular) president she ran
against, and then went on to serve. On a number of occasions during my
interview with her, I got the sense that this effort is already underway.
(And for what it's worth, I also think she may have told me that she=E2=80=
=99s
running for president=E2=80=94see below for her not-entirely-ambiguous nod =
in that
direction.)
Of course, Clinton had many kind words for the =E2=80=9Cincredibly intellig=
ent=E2=80=9D and
=E2=80=9Cthoughtful=E2=80=9D Obama, and she expressed sympathy and understa=
nding for the
devilishly complicated challenges he faces. But she also suggested that she
finds his approach to foreign policy overly cautious, and she made the case
that America needs a leader who believes that the country, despite its
various missteps, is an indispensable force for good. At one point, I
mentioned the slogan President Obama recently coined to describe his
foreign-policy doctrine: =E2=80=9CDon=E2=80=99t do stupid shit=E2=80=9D (an=
expression often
rendered as =E2=80=9CDon=E2=80=99t do stupid stuff=E2=80=9D in less-than-pr=
ivate encounters).
This is what Clinton said about Obama=E2=80=99s slogan: =E2=80=9CGreat nati=
ons need
organizing principles, and =E2=80=98Don=E2=80=99t do stupid stuff=E2=80=99 =
is not an organizing
principle.=E2=80=9D
She softened the blow by noting that Obama was =E2=80=9Ctrying to communica=
te to
the American people that he=E2=80=99s not going to do something crazy,=E2=
=80=9D but she
repeatedly suggested that the U.S. sometimes appears to be withdrawing from
the world stage.
During a discussion about the dangers of jihadism (a topic that has her
=E2=80=9Chepped-up," she told me moments after she greeted me at her office=
in New
York) and of the sort of resurgent nationalism seen in Russia today, I
noted that Americans are quite wary right now of international
commitment-making. She responded by arguing that there is a happy medium
between bellicose posturing (of the sort she associated with the George W.
Bush administration) and its opposite, a focus on withdrawal.
=E2=80=9CYou know, when you=E2=80=99re down on yourself, and when you are h=
unkering down
and pulling back, you=E2=80=99re not going to make any better decisions tha=
n when
you were aggressively, belligerently putting yourself forward,=E2=80=9D she=
said.
=E2=80=9COne issue is that we don=E2=80=99t even tell our own story very we=
ll these days.=E2=80=9D
I responded by saying that I thought that =E2=80=9Cdefeating fascism and co=
mmunism
is a pretty big deal.=E2=80=9D In other words, that the U.S., on balance, h=
as done
a good job of advancing the cause of freedom.
Clinton responded to this idea with great enthusiasm: =E2=80=9CThat=E2=80=
=99s how I feel!
Maybe this is old-fashioned.=E2=80=9D And then she seemed to signal that, y=
es,
indeed, she=E2=80=99s planning to run for president. =E2=80=9COkay, I feel =
that this might
be an old-fashioned idea, but I=E2=80=99m about to find out, in more ways t=
han one.=E2=80=9D
She said that the resilience, and expansion, of Islamist terrorism means
that the U.S. must develop an =E2=80=9Coverarching=E2=80=9D strategy to con=
front it, and
she equated this struggle to the one the U.S. waged against Soviet-led
communism.
=E2=80=9COne of the reasons why I worry about what=E2=80=99s happening in t=
he Middle East
right now is because of the breakout capacity of jihadist groups that can
affect Europe, can affect the United States,=E2=80=9D she said. =E2=80=9CJi=
hadist groups
are governing territory. They will never stay there, though. They are
driven to expand. Their raison d=E2=80=99etre is to be against the West, ag=
ainst
the Crusaders, against the fill-in-the-blank=E2=80=94and we all fit into on=
e of
these categories. How do we try to contain that? I=E2=80=99m thinking a lot=
about
containment, deterrence, and defeat.=E2=80=9D
She went on, =E2=80=9CYou know, we did a good job in containing the Soviet =
Union
but we made a lot of mistakes, we supported really nasty guys, we did some
things that we are not particularly proud of, from Latin America to
Southeast Asia, but we did have a kind of overarching framework about what
we were trying to do that did lead to the defeat of the Soviet Union and
the collapse of Communism. That was our objective. We achieved it.=E2=80=9D=
(This
was one of those moments, by the way, when I was absolutely sure I wasn=E2=
=80=99t
listening to President Obama, who is loath to discuss the threat of
Islamist terrorism in such a sweeping manner.)
Much of my conversation with Clinton focused on the Gaza war. She offered a
vociferous defense of Israel, and of its prime minister, Benjamin
Netanyahu, as well. This is noteworthy because, as secretary of state, she
spent a lot of time yelling at Netanyahu on the administration's behalf
over Israel=E2=80=99s West Bank settlement policy. Now, she is leaving no d=
aylight
at all between the Israelis and herself.
=E2=80=9CI think Israel did what it had to do to respond to the rockets,=E2=
=80=9D she told
me. =E2=80=9CIsrael has a right to defend itself. The steps Hamas has taken=
to
embed rockets and command-and-control facilities and tunnel entrances in
civilian areas, this makes a response by Israel difficult.=E2=80=9D
I asked her if she believed that Israel had done enough to prevent the
deaths of children and other innocent people.
=E2=80=9C[J]ust as we try to do in the United States and be as careful as =
possible
in going after targets to avoid civilians,=E2=80=9D mistakes are made, she =
said.
=E2=80=9CWe=E2=80=99ve made them. I don=E2=80=99t know a nation, no matter =
what its values are=E2=80=94and
I think that democratic nations have demonstrably better values in a
conflict position=E2=80=94that hasn=E2=80=99t made errors, but ultimately t=
he
responsibility rests with Hamas.=E2=80=9D
She went on to say that =E2=80=9Cit=E2=80=99s impossible to know what happe=
ns in the fog of
war. Some reports say, maybe it wasn=E2=80=99t the exact UN school that was=
bombed,
but it was the annex to the school next door where they were firing the
rockets. And I do think oftentimes that the anguish you are privy to
because of the coverage, and the women and the children and all the rest of
that, makes it very difficult to sort through to get to the truth.=E2=80=9D
She continued, =E2=80=9CThere=E2=80=99s no doubt in my mind that Hamas init=
iated this
conflict. =E2=80=A6 So the ultimate responsibility has to rest on Hamas and=
the
decisions it made.=E2=80=9D
When I asked her about the intense international focus on Gaza, she was
quick to identify anti-Semitism as an important motivating factor in
criticism of Israel. =E2=80=9CIt is striking =E2=80=A6 that you have more t=
han 170,000
people dead in Syria. =E2=80=A6 You have Russia massing battalions=E2=80=94=
Russia, that
actually annexed and is occupying part of a UN member-state=E2=80=94and I f=
ear that
it will do even more to prevent the incremental success of the Ukrainian
government to take back its own territory, other than Crimea. More than
1,000 people have been killed in Ukraine on both sides, not counting the
[Malaysia Airlines] plane, and yet we do see this enormous international
reaction against Israel, and Israel=E2=80=99s right to defend itself, and t=
he way
Israel has to defend itself. This reaction is uncalled for and unfair.=E2=
=80=9D
She went on, =E2=80=9CYou can=E2=80=99t ever discount anti-Semitism, especi=
ally with what=E2=80=99s
going on in Europe today. There are more demonstrations against Israel by
an exponential amount than there are against Russia seizing part of Ukraine
and shooting down a civilian airliner. So there=E2=80=99s something else at=
work
here than what you see on TV.=E2=80=9D Clinton also blamed Hamas for
=E2=80=9Cstage-managing=E2=80=9D the conflict. =E2=80=9CWhat you see is lar=
gely what Hamas invites
and permits Western journalists to report on from Gaza. It=E2=80=99s the ol=
d PR
problem that Israel has. Yes, there are substantive, deep levels of
antagonism or anti-Semitism towards Israel, because it=E2=80=99s a powerful=
state,
a really effective military. And Hamas paints itself as the defender of the
rights of the Palestinians to have their own state. So the PR battle is one
that is historically tilted against Israel.=E2=80=9D
Clinton also seemed to take an indirect shot at administration critics of
Netanyahu, who has argued that the rise of Muslim fundamentalism in the
Middle East means that Israel cannot, in the foreseeable future, withdraw
its forces from much of the West Bank. =E2=80=9CIf I were the prime ministe=
r of
Israel, you=E2=80=99re damn right I would expect to have control over secur=
ity,
because even if I=E2=80=99m dealing with [Palestinian Authority President M=
ahmoud]
Abbas, who is 79 years old, and other members of Fatah, who are enjoying a
better lifestyle and making money on all kinds of things, that does not
protect Israel from the influx of Hamas or cross-border attacks from
anywhere else. With Syria and Iraq, it is all one big threat. So Netanyahu
could not do this in good conscience.=E2=80=9D
She also struck a notably hard line on Iran=E2=80=99s nuclear demands. =E2=
=80=9CI=E2=80=99ve always
been in the camp that held that they did not have a right to enrichment,=E2=
=80=9D
Clinton said. =E2=80=9CContrary to their claim, there is no such thing as a=
right
to enrich. This is absolutely unfounded. There is no such right. I am well
aware that I am not at the negotiating table anymore, but I think it=E2=80=
=99s
important to send a signal to everybody who is there that there cannot be a
deal unless there is a clear set of restrictions on Iran. The preference
would be no enrichment. The potential fallback position would be such
little enrichment that they could not break out.=E2=80=9D When I asked her =
if the
demands of Israel, and of America=E2=80=99s Arab allies, that Iran not be a=
llowed
any uranium-enrichment capability whatsoever were militant or unrealistic,
she said, =E2=80=9CI think it=E2=80=99s important that they stake out that =
position.=E2=80=9D
What follows is a transcript of our conversation. It has been edited for
clarity but not for length, as you will see. Two other things to look for:
First, the masterful way in which Clinton says she has drawn no conclusions
about events in Syria and elsewhere, and then draws rigorously reasoned
conclusions. Second, her fascinating and complicated analysis of the Muslim
Brotherhood's ill-fated dalliance with democracy.
***
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: It seems that you=E2=80=99ve shifted your position on Ira=
n=E2=80=99s
nuclear ambitions. By [chief U.S. negotiator] Wendy Sherman=E2=80=99s defin=
ition of
maximalism, you=E2=80=99ve taken a fairly maximalist position=E2=80=94littl=
e or no
enrichment for Iran. Are you taking a harder line than your former
colleagues in the Obama administration are taking on this matter?
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: It=E2=80=99s a consistent line. I=E2=80=99ve always=
been in the
camp that held that they did not have a right to enrichment. Contrary to
their claim, there is no such thing as a right to enrich. This is
absolutely unfounded. There is no such right. I am well aware that I am not
at the negotiating table anymore, but I think it=E2=80=99s important to sen=
d a
signal to everybody who is there that there cannot be a deal unless there
is a clear set of restrictions on Iran. The preference would be no
enrichment. The potential fallback position would be such little enrichment
that they could not break out. So, little or no enrichment has always been
my position.
JG: Am I wrong in saying that the Obama administration=E2=80=99s negotiator=
s have a
more flexible understanding of this issue at the moment?
HRC: I don=E2=80=99t want to speak for them, but I would argue that Iran, t=
hrough
the voice of the supreme leader, has taken a very maximalist position=E2=80=
=94he
wants 190,000 centrifuges and the right to enrich. And some in our
Congress, and some of our best friends, have taken the opposite
position=E2=80=94absolutely no enrichment. I think in a negotiation you nee=
d to be
very clear about what it is going to take to move the other side. I think
at the moment there is a big debate going on in Tehran about what they can
or should do in order to get relief from the sanctions. It=E2=80=99s my
understanding that we still have a united P5+1 position, which is intensive
inspections, very clear limits on what they can do in their facilities that
they would permitted to operate, and then how they handle this question of
enrichment, whether it=E2=80=99s done from the outside, or whether it can t=
ruly be
constrained to meet what I think our standard should be of little-to-no
enrichment. That=E2=80=99s what this negotiation is about.
JG: But there is no sign that the Iranians are willing to pull
back=E2=80=94freezing in place is the farthest they seem to be willing to g=
o. Am I
wrong?
HRC: We don=E2=80=99t know. I think there=E2=80=99s a political debate. I t=
hink you had the
position staked out by the supreme leader that they=E2=80=99re going to get=
to do
what they want to do, and that they don=E2=80=99t have any intention of hav=
ing a
nuclear weapon but they nevertheless want 190,000 centrifuges (laughs). I
think the political, non-clerical side of the equation is basically saying,
=E2=80=9CLook, you know, getting relief from these sanctions is economicall=
y and
politically important to us. We have our hands full in Syria and Iraq, just
to name two places, maybe increasingly in Lebanon, and who knows what=E2=80=
=99s
going to happen with us and Hamas. So what harm does it do to have a very
strict regime that we can live under until we determine that maybe we won=
=E2=80=99t
have to any longer?=E2=80=9D That, I think, is the other side of the argume=
nt.
JG: Would you be content with an Iran that is perpetually a year away from
being able to reach nuclear-breakout capability?
HRC: I would like it to be more than year. I think it should be more than
year. No enrichment at all would make everyone breathe easier. If, however,
they want a little bit for the Tehran research reactor, or a little bit for
this scientific researcher, but they=E2=80=99ll never go above 5 percent en=
richment=E2=80=94
JG: So, a few thousand centrifuges?
HRC: We know what =E2=80=9Cno=E2=80=9D means. If we=E2=80=99re talking a li=
ttle, we=E2=80=99re talking
about a discrete, constantly inspected number of centrifuges. =E2=80=9CNo=
=E2=80=9D is my
preference.
JG: Would you define what =E2=80=9Ca little=E2=80=9D means?
HRC: No.
JG: So what the Gulf states want, and what the Israelis want, which is to
say no enrichment at all, is not a militant, unrealistic position?
HRC: It=E2=80=99s not an unrealistic position. I think it=E2=80=99s importa=
nt that they
stake out that position.
JG: So, Gaza. As you write in your book, you negotiated the last long-term
ceasefire in 2012. Are you surprised at all that it didn=E2=80=99t hold?
HRC: I=E2=80=99m surprised that it held as long as it did. But given the ch=
anges in
the region, the fall of [former Egyptian President Mohamed] Morsi, his
replacement by [Abdel Fattah] al-Sisi, the corner that Hamas felt itself
in, I=E2=80=99m not surprised that Hamas provoked another attack.
JG: The Israeli response, was it disproportionate?
HRC: Israel was attacked by rockets from Gaza. Israel has a right to defend
itself. The steps Hamas has taken to embed rockets and command-and-control
facilities and tunnel entrances in civilian areas, this makes a response by
Israel difficult. Of course Israel, just like the United States, or any
other democratic country, should do everything they can possibly do to
limit civilian casualties.
JG: Do you think Israel did enough to limit civilian casualties?
HRC: It=E2=80=99s unclear. I think Israel did what it had to do to respond =
to the
rockets. And there is the surprising number and complexity of the tunnels,
and Hamas has consistently, not just in this conflict, but in the past,
been less than protective of their civilians.
JG: Before we continue talking endlessly about Gaza, can I ask you if you
think we spend too much time on Gaza and on Israel-Palestine generally? I
ask because over the past year or so your successor spent a tremendous
amount of time on the Israel-Palestinian file and in the same period of
time an al Qaeda-inspired organization took over half of Syria and Iraq.
HRC: Right, right.
JG: I understand that secretaries of state can do more than one thing at a
time. But what is the cause of this preoccupation?
HRC: I=E2=80=99ve thought a lot about this, because you do have a number of
conflicts going on right now. As the U.S., as a U.S. official, you have to
pay attention to anything that threatens Israel directly, or anything in
the larger Middle East that arises out of the Palestinian-Israeli
situation. That=E2=80=99s just a given.
It is striking, however, that you have more than 170,000 people dead in
Syria. You have the vacuum that has been created by the relentless assault
by Assad on his own population, an assault that has bred these extremist
groups, the most well-known of which, ISIS=E2=80=94or ISIL=E2=80=94is now l=
iterally
expanding its territory inside Syria and inside Iraq. You have Russia
massing battalions=E2=80=94Russia, that actually annexed and is occupying p=
art of a
UN member state=E2=80=94and I fear that it will do even more to prevent the
incremental success of the Ukrainian government to take back its own
territory, other than Crimea. More than 1,000 people have been killed in
Ukraine on both sides, not counting the [Malaysia Airlines] plane, and yet
we do see this enormous international reaction against Israel, and Israel=
=E2=80=99s
right to defend itself, and the way Israel has to defend itself. This
reaction is uncalled for and unfair.
JG: What do you think causes this reaction?
HRC: There are a number of factors going into it. You can=E2=80=99t ever di=
scount
anti-Semitism, especially with what=E2=80=99s going on in Europe today. The=
re are
more demonstrations against Israel by an exponential amount than there are
against Russia seizing part of Ukraine and shooting down a civilian
airliner. So there=E2=80=99s something else at work here than what you see =
on TV.
And what you see on TV is so effectively stage-managed by Hamas, and always
has been. What you see is largely what Hamas invites and permits Western
journalists to report on from Gaza. It=E2=80=99s the old PR problem that Is=
rael
has. Yes, there are substantive, deep levels of antagonism or anti-Semitism
towards Israel, because it=E2=80=99s a powerful state, a really effective m=
ilitary.
And Hamas paints itself as the defender of the rights of the Palestinians
to have their own state. So the PR battle is one that is historically
tilted against Israel.
JG: Nevertheless there are hundreds of children=E2=80=94
HRC: Absolutely, and it=E2=80=99s dreadful.
JG: Who do you hold responsible for those deaths? How do you parcel out
blame?
HRC: I=E2=80=99m not sure it=E2=80=99s possible to parcel out blame because=
it=E2=80=99s impossible
to know what happens in the fog of war. Some reports say, maybe it wasn=E2=
=80=99t
the exact UN school that was bombed, but it was the annex to the school
next door where they were firing the rockets. And I do think oftentimes
that the anguish you are privy to because of the coverage, and the women
and the children and all the rest of that, makes it very difficult to sort
through to get to the truth.
There=E2=80=99s no doubt in my mind that Hamas initiated this conflict and =
wanted
to do so in order to leverage its position, having been shut out by the
Egyptians post-Morsi, having been shunned by the Gulf, having been pulled
into a technocratic government with Fatah and the Palestinian Authority
that might have caused better governance and a greater willingness on the
part of the people of Gaza to move away from tolerating Hamas in their
midst. So the ultimate responsibility has to rest on Hamas and the
decisions it made.
That doesn=E2=80=99t mean that, just as we try to do in the United States a=
nd be as
careful as possible in going after targets to avoid civilians, that there
aren=E2=80=99t mistakes that are made. We=E2=80=99ve made them. I don=E2=80=
=99t know a nation, no
matter what its values are=E2=80=94and I think that democratic nations have
demonstrably better values in a conflict position=E2=80=94that hasn=E2=80=
=99t made errors,
but ultimately the responsibility rests with Hamas.
JG: Several years ago, when you were in the Senate, we had a conversation
about what would move Israeli leaders to make compromises for peace. You=E2=
=80=99ve
had a lot of arguments with Netanyahu. What is your thinking on Netanyahu
now?
HRC: Let=E2=80=99s step back. First of all, [former Israeli Prime Minister]=
Yitzhak
Rabin was prepared to do so much and he was murdered for that belief. And
then [former Israeli Prime Minister] Ehud Barak offered everything you
could imagine being given under any realistic scenario to the Palestinians
for their state, and [former Palestinian leader Yasir] Arafat walked away.
I don=E2=80=99t care about the revisionist history. I know that Arafat walk=
ed away,
okay? Everybody says, =E2=80=9CAmerican needs to say something.=E2=80=9D We=
ll, we said it,
it was the Clinton parameters, we put it out there, and Bill Clinton is
adored in Israel, as you know. He got Netanyahu to give up territory, which
Netanyahu believes lost him the prime ministership [in his first term], but
he moved in that direction, as hard as it was.
Bush pretty much ignored what was going on and they made a terrible error
in the Palestinian elections [in which Hamas came to power in Gaza], but he
did come with the Roadmap [to Peace] and the Roadmap was credible and it
talked about what needed to be done, and this is one area where I give the
Palestinians credit. Under [former Palestinian Prime Minister] Salam
Fayyad, they made a lot of progress.
I had the last face-to-face negotiations between Abbas and Netanyahu.
[Secretary of State John] Kerry never got there. I had them in the room
three times with [former Middle East negotiator] George Mitchell and me,
and that was it. And I saw Netanyahu move from being against the two-state
solution to announcing his support for it, to considering all kinds of
Barak-like options, way far from what he is, and what he is comfortable
with.
Now I put Jerusalem in a different category. That is the hardest issue,
Again, based on my experience=E2=80=94and you know, I got Netanyahu to agre=
e to the
unprecedented settlement freeze, it did not cover East Jerusalem, but it
did cover the West Bank and it was actually legitimate and it did stop new
housing starts for 10 months. It took me nine months to get Abbas into the
negotiations even after we delivered on the settlement freeze, he had a
million reasons, some of them legitimate, some of them the same old, same
old.
So what I tell people is, yeah, if I were the prime minister of Israel,
you=E2=80=99re damn right I would expect to have control over security [on =
the West
Bank], because even if I=E2=80=99m dealing with Abbas, who is 79 years old,=
and
other members of Fatah, who are enjoying a better lifestyle and making
money on all kinds of things, that does not protect Israel from the influx
of Hamas or cross-border attacks from anywhere else. With Syria and Iraq,
it is all one big threat. So Netanyahu could not do this in good
conscience. If this were Rabin or Barak in his place=E2=80=94and I=E2=80=99=
ve talked to
Ehud about this=E2=80=94they would have to demand a level of security that =
would be
provided by the [Israel Defense Forces] for a period of time. And in my
meetings with them I got Abbas to about six, seven, eight years on
continued IDF presence. Now he=E2=80=99s fallen back to three, but he was w=
ith me
at six, seven, eight. I got Netanyahu to go from forever to 2025. That=E2=
=80=99s a
negotiation, okay? So I know. Dealing with Bibi is not easy, so people get
frustrated and they lose sight of what we=E2=80=99re trying to achieve here=
.
JG: You go out of your way in Hard Choices to praise Robert Ford, who
recently quit as U.S. ambassador to Syria, as an excellent diplomat. Ford
quit in protest and has recently written strongly about what he sees as the
inadequacies of Obama administration policy. Do you agree with Ford that we
are at fault for not doing enough to build up a credible Syrian opposition
when we could have?
HRC: I have the highest regard for Robert. I=E2=80=99m the one who convince=
d the
administration to send an ambassador to Syria. You know, this is why I
called the chapter on Syria =E2=80=9CA Wicked Problem.=E2=80=9D I can=E2=80=
=99t sit here today and
say that if we had done what I recommended, and what Robert Ford
recommended, that we=E2=80=99d be in a demonstrably different place.
JG: That=E2=80=99s the president=E2=80=99s argument, that we wouldn=E2=80=
=99t be in a different
place.
HRC: Well, I did believe, which is why I advocated this, that if we were to
carefully vet, train, and equip early on a core group of the developing
Free Syrian Army, we would, number one, have some better insight into what
was going on on the ground. Two, we would have been helped in standing up a
credible political opposition, which would prove to be very difficult,
because there was this constant struggle between what was largely an exile
group outside of Syria trying to claim to be the political opposition, and
the people on the ground, primarily those doing the fighting and dying, who
rejected that, and we were never able to bridge that, despite a lot of
efforts that Robert and others made.
So I did think that eventually, and I said this at the time, in a conflict
like this, the hard men with the guns are going to be the more likely
actors in any political transition than those on the outside just talking.
And therefore we needed to figure out how we could support them on the
ground, better equip them, and we didn=E2=80=99t have to go all the way, an=
d I
totally understand the cautions that we had to contend with, but we=E2=80=
=99ll
never know. And I don=E2=80=99t think we can claim to know.
JG: You do have a suspicion, though.
HRC: Obviously. I advocated for a position.
JG: Do you think we=E2=80=99d be where we are with ISIS right now if the U.=
S. had
done more three years ago to build up a moderate Syrian opposition?
HRC: Well, I don=E2=80=99t know the answer to that. I know that the failure=
to help
build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators
of the protests against Assad=E2=80=94there were Islamists, there were secu=
larists,
there was everything in the middle=E2=80=94the failure to do that left a bi=
g
vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled.
They were often armed in an indiscriminate way by other forces and we had
no skin in the game that really enabled us to prevent this indiscriminate
arming.
JG: Is there a chance that President Obama overlearned the lessons of the
previous administration? In other words, if the story of the Bush
administration is one of overreach, is the story of the Obama
administration one of underreach?
HRC: You know, I don=E2=80=99t think you can draw that conclusion. It=E2=80=
=99s a very key
question. How do you calibrate, that=E2=80=99s the key issue. I think we ha=
ve
learned a lot during this period, but then how to apply it going forward
will still take a lot of calibration and balancing. But you know, we helped
overthrow [Libyan leader Muammar] Qaddafi.
JG: But we didn=E2=80=99t stick around for the aftermath.
HRC: Well, we did stick around. We stuck around with offers of money and
technical assistance, on everything from getting rid of some of the nasty
stuff he left behind, to border security, to training. It wasn=E2=80=99t ju=
st us,
it was the Europeans as well. Some of the Gulf countries had their
particular favorites. They certainly stuck around and backed their favorite
militias. It is not yet clear how the Libyans themselves will overcome the
lack of security, which they inherited from Qaddafi. Remember, they=E2=80=
=99ve had
two good elections. They=E2=80=99ve elected moderates and secularists and a=
limited
number of Islamists, so you talk about democracy in action=E2=80=94the Liby=
ans have
done it twice=E2=80=94but they can=E2=80=99t control the ground. But how ca=
n you help when
you have so many different players who looted the stuffed warehouses of
every kind of weapon from the Qaddafi regime, some of which they=E2=80=99re=
using
in Libya, some of which they=E2=80=99re passing out around the region?
So you can go back and argue either, we should we have helped the people of
Libya try to overthrow a dictator who, remember, killed Americans and did a
lot of other bad stuff, or we should have been on the sidelines. In this
case we helped, but that didn=E2=80=99t make the road any easier in Syria, =
where we
said, =E2=80=9CIt=E2=80=99s messy, it=E2=80=99s complicated, we=E2=80=99re =
not sure what the outcome will
be.=E2=80=9D So what I=E2=80=99m hoping for is that we sort out what we hav=
e learned,
because we=E2=80=99ve tried a bunch of different approaches. Egypt is a per=
fect
example. The revolution in Tahrir Square was not a Muslim Brotherhood
revolution. It was not led by Islamists. They came very late to the party.
Mubarak falls and I=E2=80=99m in Cairo a short time after, meeting the lead=
ers of
this movement, and I=E2=80=99m saying, =E2=80=9COkay, who=E2=80=99s going t=
o run for office? Who=E2=80=99s
going to form a political party?=E2=80=9D and they=E2=80=99re saying, =E2=
=80=9CWe don=E2=80=99t do that,
that=E2=80=99s not who we are.=E2=80=9D
And I said that there are only two organized groups in this country, the
military and the Muslim Brotherhood, and what we have here is an old lesson
that you can=E2=80=99t beat somebody with nobody. There was a real opportun=
ity here
to, if a group had arisen out of the revolution, to create a democratic
Egyptian alternative. Didn=E2=80=99t happen. What do we have to think abou=
t? In
order to do that better, I see a lot of questions that we have to be
answering. I don=E2=80=99t think we can draw judgments yet. I think we can =
draw a
judgment about the Bush administration in terms of overreach, but I don=E2=
=80=99t
know that we can reach a conclusion about underreach.
JG: There is this moment in your book, in which Morsi tells you not to
worry about jihadists in the Sinai=E2=80=94he says in essence that now that=
a
Muslim Brotherhood government is in charge, jihadists won=E2=80=99t feel th=
e need
to continue their campaign. You write that this was either shockingly
sinister or shockingly na=C3=AFve. Which one do you think it was?
HRC: I think Morsi was na=C3=AFve. I=E2=80=99m just talking about Morsi, no=
t necessarily
anyone else in the Muslim Brotherhood. I think he genuinely believed that
with the legitimacy of an elected Islamist government, that the jihadists
would see that there was a different route to power and influence and would
be part of the political process. He had every hope, in fact, that the
credible election of a Muslim Brotherhood government would mean the end of
jihadist activities within Egypt, and also exemplify that there=E2=80=99s a
different way to power.
The debate is between the bin Ladens of the world and the Muslim
Brotherhood. The bin Ladens believe you can=E2=80=99t overthrow the infidel=
s or the
impure through politics. It has to be through violent resistance. So when I
made the case to Morsi that we were picking up a lot of intelligence about
jihadist groups creating safe havens inside Sinai, and that this would be a
threat not only to Israel but to Egypt, he just dismissed this out of hand,
and then shortly thereafter a large group of Egyptian soldiers were
murdered.
JG: In an interview in 2011, I asked you if we should fear the Muslim
Brotherhood=E2=80=94this is well before they came into power=E2=80=94and yo=
u said, =E2=80=98The
jury is out.=E2=80=9D Is the jury still out for you today?
HRC: I think the jury would come back with a lesser included offense, and
that is a failure to govern in a democratic, inclusive manner while holding
power in Cairo. The Muslim Brotherhood had the most extraordinary
opportunity to demonstrate the potential for an Islamist movement to take
responsibility for governance, and they were ill-prepared and unable to
make the transition from movement to responsibility. We will see how they
respond to the crackdown they=E2=80=99re under in Egypt, but the Muslim Bro=
therhood
itself, although it had close ties with Hamas, for example, had not
evidenced, because they were kept under tight control by Mubarak, the
willingness to engage in violent conflict to achieve their goals. So the
jury is in on their failure to govern in a way that would win the
confidence of the entire Egyptian electorate. The jury is out as to whether
they morph into a violent jihadist resistance group.
JG: There=E2=80=99s a critique you hear of the Obama administration in the =
Gulf, in
Jordan, in Israel, that it is a sign of naivet=C3=A9 to believe that there =
are
Islamists you can work with, and that Hamas might even be a group that you
could work with. Is there a role for political Islam in these countries?
Can we ever find a way to work with them?
HRC: I think it=E2=80=99s too soon to tell. I would not put Hamas in the ca=
tegory
of people we could work with. I don=E2=80=99t think that is realistic becau=
se its
whole reason for being is resistance against Israel, destruction of Israel,
and it is married to very nasty tactics and ideologies, including virulent
anti-Semitism. I do not think they should be in any way treated as a
legitimate interlocutor, especially because if you do that, it redounds to
the disadvantage of the Palestinian Authority, which has a lot of problems,
but historically has changed its charter, moved away from the kind of
guerrilla resistance movement of previous decades.
I think you have to ask yourself, could different leaders have made a
difference in the Muslim Brotherhood=E2=80=99s governance of Egypt? We won=
=E2=80=99t know
and we can=E2=80=99t know the answer to that question. We know that Morsi w=
as
ill-equipped to be president of Egypt. He had no political experience. He
was an engineer, he was wedded to the ideology of top-down control.
JG: But you=E2=80=99re open to the idea that there are sophisticated Islami=
sts out
there?
HRC: I think you=E2=80=99ve seen a level of sophistication in Tunisia. It=
=E2=80=99s a very
different environment than Egypt, much smaller, but you=E2=80=99ve seen the=
Ennahda
Party evolve from being quite demanding that their position be accepted as
the national position but then being willing to step back in the face of
very strong political opposition from secularists, from moderate Muslims,
etc. So Tunisia might not be the tail that wags the dog, but it=E2=80=99s a=
n
interesting tail. If you look at Morocco, where the king had a major role
in organizing the electoral change, you have a head of state who is a
monarch who is descended from Muhammad, you have a government that is
largely but not completely representative of the Muslim party of Morocco.
So I think that there are not a lot of analogies, but when you look around
the world, there=E2=80=99s a Hindu nationalist party now, back in power in =
India.
The big question for Prime Minister Modi is how inclusive he will be as
leader because of questions raised concerning his governance of Gujurat
[the state he governed, which was the scene of anti-Muslim riots in 2002].
There were certainly Christian parties in Europe, pre- and post-World War
II. They had very strong values that they wanted to see their society
follow, but they were steeped in democracy, so they were good political
actors.
JG: So, it=E2=80=99s not an impossibility.
HRC: It=E2=80=99s not an impossibility. So far, it doesn=E2=80=99t seem lik=
ely. We have to
say that. Because for whatever reason, whatever combination of reasons,
there hasn=E2=80=99t been the soil necessary to nurture the political side =
of the
experience, for people whose primary self-definition is as Islamists.
JG: Are we so egocentric, so Washington-centric, that we think that our
decisions are dispositive? As secretary, did you learn more about the
possibilities of American power or the limitations of American power?
HRC: Both, but it=E2=80=99s not just about American power. It=E2=80=99s Ame=
rican values
that also happen to be universal values. If you have no political=E2=80=94s=
mall
=E2=80=9Cp=E2=80=9D=E2=80=94experience, it is really hard to go from a dict=
atorship to anything
resembling what you and I would call democracy. That=E2=80=99s the lesson o=
f Egypt.
We didn=E2=80=99t invade Egypt. They did it themselves, and once they did i=
t they
looked around and didn=E2=80=99t know what they were supposed to do next.
I think we=E2=80=99ve learned about the limits of our power to spread freed=
om and
democracy. That=E2=80=99s one of the big lessons out of Iraq. But we=E2=80=
=99ve also
learned about the importance of our power, our influence, and our values
appropriately deployed and explained. If you=E2=80=99re looking at what we =
could
have done that would have been more effective, would have been more
accepted by the Egyptians on the political front, what could we have done
that would have been more effective in Libya, where they did their
elections really well under incredibly difficult circumstances but they
looked around and they had no levers to pull because they had these
militias out there. My passion is, let=E2=80=99s do some after-action revie=
ws,
let=E2=80=99s learn these lessons, let=E2=80=99s figure out how we=E2=80=99=
re going to have
different and better responses going forward.
JG: Is the lesson for you, like it is for President Obama, =E2=80=9CDon=E2=
=80=99t do stupid
shit=E2=80=9D?
HRC: That=E2=80=99s a good lesson but it=E2=80=99s more complicated than th=
at. Because your
stupid may not be mine, and vice versa. I don=E2=80=99t think it was stupid=
for the
United States to do everything we could to remove Qaddafi because that came
from the bottom up. That was people asking us to help. It was stupid to do
what we did in Iraq and to have no plan about what to do after we did it.
That was really stupid. I don=E2=80=99t think you can quickly jump to concl=
usions
about what falls into the stupid and non-stupid categories. That=E2=80=99s =
what I=E2=80=99m
arguing.
JG: Do you think the next administration, whoever it is, can find some
harmony between muscular intervention=E2=80=94=E2=80=9CWe must do something=
=E2=80=9D=E2=80=94vs. let=E2=80=99s just
not do something stupid, let=E2=80=99s stay away from problems like Syria b=
ecause
it=E2=80=99s a wicked problem and not something we want to tackle?
HRC: I think part of the challenge is that our government too often has a
tendency to swing between these extremes. The pendulum swings back and then
the pendulum swings the other way. What I=E2=80=99m arguing for is to take =
a hard
look at what tools we have. Are they sufficient for the complex situations
we=E2=80=99re going to face, or not? And what can we do to have better tool=
s? I do
think that is an important debate.
One of the reasons why I worry about what=E2=80=99s happening in the Middle=
East
right now is because of the breakout capacity of jihadist groups that can
affect Europe, can affect the United States. Jihadist groups are governing
territory. They will never stay there, though. They are driven to expand.
Their raison d'=C3=AAtre is to be against the West, against the Crusaders,
against the fill-in-the-blank=E2=80=94and we all fit into one of these cate=
gories.
How do we try to contain that? I=E2=80=99m thinking a lot about containment=
,
deterrence, and defeat. You know, we did a good job in containing the
Soviet Union, but we made a lot of mistakes, we supported really nasty
guys, we did some things that we are not particularly proud of, from Latin
America to Southeast Asia, but we did have a kind of overarching framework
about what we were trying to do that did lead to the defeat of the Soviet
Union and the collapse of Communism. That was our objective. We achieved it=
.
Now the big mistake was thinking that, okay, the end of history has come
upon us, after the fall of the Soviet Union. That was never true, history
never stops and nationalisms were going to assert themselves, and then
other variations on ideologies were going to claim their space. Obviously,
jihadi Islam is the prime example, but not the only example=E2=80=94the eff=
ort by
Putin to restore his vision of Russian greatness is another. In the world
in which we are living right now, vacuums get filled by some pretty
unsavory players.
JG: There doesn=E2=80=99t seem to be a domestic constituency for the type o=
f
engagement you might symbolize.
HRC: Well, that=E2=80=99s because most Americans think of engagement and go
immediately to military engagement. That=E2=80=99s why I use the phrase =E2=
=80=9Csmart
power.=E2=80=9D I did it deliberately because I thought we had to have anot=
her way
of talking about American engagement, other than unilateralism and the
so-called boots on the ground.
You know, when you=E2=80=99re down on yourself, and when you are hunkering =
down and
pulling back, you=E2=80=99re not going to make any better decisions than wh=
en you
were aggressively, belligerently putting yourself forward. One issue is
that we don=E2=80=99t even tell our own story very well these days.
JG: I think that defeating fascism and communism is a pretty big deal.
HRC: That=E2=80=99s how I feel! Maybe this is old-fashioned. Okay, I feel t=
hat this
might be an old-fashioned idea=E2=80=94but I=E2=80=99m about to find out, i=
n more ways than
one.
Great nations need organizing principles, and =E2=80=9CDon=E2=80=99t do stu=
pid stuff=E2=80=9D is
not an organizing principle. It may be a necessary brake on the actions you
might take in order to promote a vision.
JG: So why do you think the president went out of his way to suggest
recently that that this is his foreign policy in a nutshell?
HRC: I think he was trying to communicate to the American people that he=E2=
=80=99s
not going to do something crazy. I=E2=80=99ve sat in too many rooms with th=
e
president. He=E2=80=99s thoughtful, he=E2=80=99s incredibly smart, and able=
to analyze a
lot of different factors that are all moving at the same time. I think he
is cautious because he knows what he inherited, both the two wars and the
economic front, and he has expended a lot of capital and energy trying to
pull us out of the hole we=E2=80=99re in.
So I think that that=E2=80=99s a political message. It=E2=80=99s not his wo=
rldview, if that
makes sense to you.
JG: There is an idea in some quarters that the administration shows signs
of believing that we, the U.S., aren=E2=80=99t so great, so we shouldn=E2=
=80=99t be telling
people what to do.
HRC: I know that that is an opinion held by a certain group of Americans, I
get all that. It=E2=80=99s not where I=E2=80=99m at.
JG: What is your organizing principle, then?
HRC: Peace, progress, and prosperity. This worked for a very long time.
Take prosperity. That=E2=80=99s a huge domestic challenge for us. If we don=
=E2=80=99t
restore the American dream for Americans, then you can forget about any
kind of continuing leadership in the world. Americans deserve to feel
secure in their own lives, in their own middle-class aspirations, before
you go to them and say, =E2=80=9CWe=E2=80=99re going to have to enforce nav=
igable sea lanes
in the South China Sea.=E2=80=9D You=E2=80=99ve got to take care of your ho=
me first. That=E2=80=99s
another part of the political messaging that you have to engage in right
now. People are not only turned off about being engaged in the world,
they=E2=80=99re pretty discouraged about what=E2=80=99s happening here at h=
ome.
I think people want=E2=80=94and this is a generalization I will go ahead an=
d
make=E2=80=94people want to make sure our economic situation improves and t=
hat our
political decision-making improves. Whether they articulate it this way or
not, I think people feel like we=E2=80=99re facing really important challen=
ges here
at home: The economy is not growing, the middle class is not feeling like
they are secure, and we are living in a time of gridlock and dysfunction
that is just frustrating and outraging.
People assume that we=E2=80=99re going to have to do what we do so long as =
it=E2=80=99s not
stupid, but what people want us to focus on are problems here at home. If
you were to scratch below the surface on that=E2=80=94and I haven=E2=80=99t=
looked at the
research or the polling=E2=80=94but I think people would say, first things =
first.
Let=E2=80=99s make sure we are taking care of our people and we=E2=80=99re =
doing it in a
way that will bring rewards to those of us who work hard, play by the
rules, and yeah, we don=E2=80=99t want to see the world go to hell in a han=
dbasket,
and they don=E2=80=99t want to see a resurgence of aggression by anybody.
JG: Do you think they understand your idea about expansionist jihadism
following us home?
HRC: I don=E2=80=99t know that people are thinking about it. People are thi=
nking
about what is wrong with people in Washington that they can=E2=80=99t make
decisions, and they want the economy to grow again. People are feeling a
little bit that there=E2=80=99s a little bit happening that is making them =
feel
better about the economy, but it=E2=80=99s not nearly enough where it shoul=
d be.
JG: Have you been able to embed your women=E2=80=99s agenda at the core of =
what the
federal government does?
HRC: Yes, we did. We had the first-ever ambassador for global women=E2=80=
=99s
issues. That=E2=80=99s permanent now, and that=E2=80=99s a big deal because=
that is the
beachhead.
Secretary Kerry to his credit has issued directions to embassies and
diplomats about this continuing to be a priority for our government. There
is also a much greater basis in research now that proves you cannot have
peace and security without the participation of women. You can=E2=80=99t gr=
ow your
GDP without opening the doors to full participation of women and girls in
the formal economy.
JG: There=E2=80=99s a link between misogyny and stagnation in the Middle Ea=
st,
which in many ways is the world=E2=80=99s most dysfunctional region.
HRC: It=E2=80=99s now very provable, when you look at the data from the IMF=
and the
World Bank and what opening the formal economy would mean to a country=E2=
=80=99s
GDP. You have Prime Minister [Shinzo] Abe in Japan who was elected to fix
the economy after so many years of dysfunction in Japan, and one of the
major elements in his plan is to get women into the workforce. If you do
that, if I remember correctly, the GDP for Japan would go up nine percent.
Well, it would go up 34 percent in Egypt. So it=E2=80=99s self-evident and =
provable.
*Politico: =E2=80=9CHillary Clinton takes on Obama=E2=80=9D
*
By Maggie Haberman
August 10, 2014, 11:55 a.m. EDT
Hillary Clinton has taken her furthest and most public step away from
President Barack Obama, describing his decision against helping build a
=E2=80=9Ccredible=E2=80=9D force that could battle the Assad regime in Syri=
a early on as a
=E2=80=9Cfailure.=E2=80=9D
In an interview with The Atlantic, she also rejected the core of Obama=E2=
=80=99s
self-described foreign policy doctrine and stood firmly with Israel in the
Gaza conflict.
The interview was conducted early last week before Obama authorized
airstrikes in Iraq, and it is one of the longest Clinton has given on
policy since she stepped down as Secretary of State early in 2013. At the
end of the week, Obama, in his own one-on-one interview with New York Times
columnist Tom Friedman, reiterated his view that early arming of Syrian
rebels in that conflict was a =E2=80=9Cfantasy.=E2=80=9D He=E2=80=99s expre=
ssed that view
repeatedly over recent months.
The Clinton interview =E2=80=94 lengthy and detailed =E2=80=94 is consisten=
t with a view of
American exceptionalism that she has discussed throughout her book tour
this summer.
Syria, where the civil war has contributed to the current conflict in Iraq,
was on track to become a clear flash point between Clinton and Obama before
she even left the administration. But her comments make clear how much of a
divide there is between the two on the topic.
=E2=80=9CThe failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the peop=
le who
were the originators of the protests against Assad =E2=80=94 there were Isl=
amists,
there were secularists, there was everything in the middle=E2=80=94the fail=
ure to
do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled,=E2=80=9D Cl=
inton
said in the interview with The Atlantic=E2=80=99s Jeffrey Goldberg last wee=
k, amid
images of a world on fire across American television screens.
The temptation will be to characterize Clinton as calibrating against a
president whose poll numbers are sinking and as a the globe has plunged
into chaos, with a downed jet in Ukraine and the U.S. pulled back into
military action in Iraq, where Islamic State fighters have gained strength
and where conflict has threatened Kurdish allies of the U.S.. And there is
no question she is making these remarks as Obama=E2=80=99s agenda is being =
dictated
by world events, and as critics are questioning his goal of trying to
minimize U.S. intervention overseas.
His foreign policy doctrine as a whole has been slammed by his critics as
too timid, too slow to respond, too passive instead of proactive.
Yet the reality is that Clinton has always been more of a hawk than Obama,
and the interview is less about her triangulating away from him than
talking about her views on policy. For an almost-certain presidential
candidate who has viewed the world through a different lens than the
president and whose aides have insisted she is being blunter about her
views than the canned version of herself in the 2008 presidential campaign,
the separation from him was, as Goldberg himself notes, only a matter of
time.
A recent POLITICO battleground poll showed Clinton=E2=80=99s own numbers as
Secretary of State have taken a hit, coming after months of Republican
focus on Benghazi but also as international events have dominated the news.
On Obama=E2=80=99s self-described foreign policy doctrine =E2=80=94 =E2=80=
=9CDon=E2=80=99t do stupid shit,=E2=80=9D
or =E2=80=9CDon=E2=80=99t do stupid stuff,=E2=80=9D if, as Goldberg noted, =
uttered in public =E2=80=94
Clinton was blunt: =E2=80=9CGreat nations need organizing principles, and =
=E2=80=98Don=E2=80=99t do
stupid stuff=E2=80=99 is not an organizing principle. =E2=80=A6 I think he =
was trying to
communicate to the American people that he=E2=80=99s not going to do someth=
ing
crazy. I=E2=80=99ve sat in too many rooms with the president. He=E2=80=99s =
thoughtful, he=E2=80=99s
incredibly smart, and able to analyze a lot of different factors that are
all moving at the same time. I think he is cautious because he knows what
he inherited, both the two wars and the economic front, and he has expended
a lot of capital and energy trying to pull us out of the hole we=E2=80=99re=
in.=E2=80=9D
She added, =E2=80=9CI think that that=E2=80=99s a political message. It=E2=
=80=99s not his
worldview, if that makes sense to you.=E2=80=9D
On the question of the raging conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza
Strip, she said, =E2=80=9D If I were the prime minister of Israel, you=E2=
=80=99re damn
right I would expect to have control over security [on the West Bank],
because even if I=E2=80=99m dealing with [Mahmoud] Abbas, who is 79 years o=
ld, and
other members of Fatah, who are enjoying a better lifestyle and making
money on all kinds of things, that does not protect Israel from the influx
of Hamas or cross-border attacks from anywhere else.=E2=80=9D
A source familiar with the interview said Clinton=E2=80=99s team gave the W=
hite
House a warning that it had taken place. Clinton aides would not explain
the timing, other than describing the interview as one intended to promote
her book, =E2=80=9CHard Choices.=E2=80=9D It may not have been a specific e=
ffort to escape
from the creeping shadow of global chaos that has stretched over the White
House, but it will be viewed that way.
Still, the comments were with a columnist who is widely viewed as the
pre-eminent voice of the moderate-right foreign policy establishment.
And Clinton did not denounce the president - she made clear she =E2=80=9Cad=
vocated=E2=80=9D
for arming the Syrian rebels, but acknowledged there was no way to know
with absolute certainty whether it would have made a difference.
=E2=80=9CI did believe, which is why I advocated this, that if we were to c=
arefully
vet, train, and equip early on a core group of the developing Free Syrian
Army, we would, number one, have some better insight into what was going on
on the ground,=E2=80=9D she said.
=E2=80=9CTwo, we would have been helped in standing up a credible political
opposition, which would prove to be very difficult, because there was this
constant struggle between what was largely an exile group outside of Syria
trying to claim to be the political opposition, and the people on the
ground, primarily those doing the fighting and dying, who rejected that,
and we were never able to bridge that. =E2=80=A6 So I did think that eventu=
ally,
and I said this at the time, in a conflict like this, the hard men with the
guns are going to be the more likely actors in any political transition
than those on the outside just talking. And therefore we needed to figure
out how we could support them on the ground, better equip them, and we
didn=E2=80=99t have to go all the way, and I totally understand the caution=
s that
we had to contend with, but we=E2=80=99ll never know. And I don=E2=80=99t t=
hink we can
claim to know.=E2=80=9D
The topic of Syria has been fraught between the Clintons and Obama for much
of the last 18 months. At a closed-press event for Sen. John McCain=E2=80=
=99s
institute last year, as POLITICO first reported, Bill Clinton, in a
question-and-answer session with the senator, said that Obama should act
more forcefully to help the Syrian rebels and that any president risked
looking like a =E2=80=9Ctotal fool=E2=80=9D if they over learned from publi=
c opinion polls.
With Goldberg, Hillary Clinton pushed back when he asked whether Obama
could be accused of =E2=80=9Cunderreaching=E2=80=9D in his foreign policy a=
pproach.
=E2=80=9CYou know, I don=E2=80=99t think you can draw that conclusion,=E2=
=80=9D she said. =E2=80=9CIt=E2=80=99s a
very key question. How do you calibrate, that=E2=80=99s the key issue. I th=
ink we
have learned a lot during this period, but then how to apply it going
forward will still take a lot of calibration and balancing.=E2=80=9D
Still, over the last 18 months, Clinton has crept around the edges of
separation from the unpopular president in whose Cabinet she served, but
the interview marks the most declarative daylight between them. Clinton
discussed the suggested plan to arm Syrian rebels, an idea she and then-CIA
head Gen. David Petraeus both pushed, as one of the fights she=E2=80=99d lo=
st
internally.
But now she is using the word =E2=80=9Cfailure,=E2=80=9D a pointed descript=
ion that,
according to several people familiar with her thinking, dovetails with her
frustration with the administration in recent months.
A number of Democrats have privately insisted for months that while they
expected Clinton to move away from Obama on the margins of foreign policy,
it would be risky to separate too broadly. That risk? Affronting Democrats
who did not support her in the 2008 presidential primary against Obama, and
whose backing she=E2=80=99ll need.
Clinton pointed to growing anti-Semitism in Europe as she defended Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and said, =E2=80=9CI think Israel did wh=
at it
had to do to respond to the rockets. =E2=80=A6 Israel has a right to defend=
itself.
The steps Hamas has taken to embed rockets and command-and-control
facilities and tunnel entrances in civilian areas, this makes a response by
Israel difficult.=E2=80=9D
Her successor, Secretary of State John Kerry, was caught on a hot mic on
=E2=80=9CFox News Sunday=E2=80=9D appearing to criticize Netanyahu=E2=80=99=
s description of the
Gaza operation as =E2=80=9Cpinpoint,=E2=80=9D given the number of civilian =
casualties.
=E2=80=9CI don=E2=80=99t know a nation, no matter what its values are =E2=
=80=94 and I think that
democratic nations have demonstrably better values in a conflict position =
=E2=80=94
that hasn=E2=80=99t made errors, but ultimately the responsibility rests wi=
th
Hamas,=E2=80=9D said Clinton.
=E2=80=9CThere=E2=80=99s no doubt in my mind that Hamas initiated this conf=
lict. =E2=80=A6 So the
ultimate responsibility has to rest on Hamas and the decisions it made.=E2=
=80=9D
Yet, Clinton has clearly decided that she disagrees with Obama on specific
issues, and that the greater danger is in silence.
Poll after poll has shown that the American public has little stomach for
conflict abroad, or for engaging U.S. troops in drawn-out battles.
When Goldberg noted that she =E2=80=9Csymbolizes=E2=80=9D a type of foreign=
policy
engagement that has dwindled in popularity in the U.S., Clinton said,
=E2=80=9CThat=E2=80=99s because most Americans think of engagement and go i=
mmediately to
military engagement. That=E2=80=99s why I use the phrase =E2=80=98smart pow=
er.=E2=80=99 I did it
deliberately because I thought we had to have another way of talking about
American engagement, other than unilateralism and the so-called boots on
the ground.=E2=80=9D
She added, =E2=80=9CYou know, when you=E2=80=99re down on yourself, and whe=
n you are
hunkering down and pulling back, you=E2=80=99re not going to make any bette=
r
decisions than when you were aggressively, belligerently putting yourself
forward. One issue is that we don=E2=80=99t even tell our own story very we=
ll these
days.=E2=80=9D
Goldberg said he considers defeating communism and fascism to be =E2=80=9Ca=
big
deal,=E2=80=9D to which Clinton exclaimed, =E2=80=9CThat=E2=80=99s how I fe=
el! Maybe this is
old-fashioned. OK, I feel that this might be an old-fashioned idea =E2=80=
=94 but
I=E2=80=99m about to find out, in more ways than one.=E2=80=9D
Goldberg interpreted that declaration from Clinton as essentially a
statement of candidacy. Clinton has made similar asides in other
interviews, but reading the tea leaves about whether she is going to run
sort of misses the point =E2=80=94 everything in her actions suggests she a=
lready
is.
*Politico: =E2=80=9CBarack Obama rebukes Syrian =E2=80=98fantasy=E2=80=99=
=E2=80=9D
*
By Nick Gass
August 10, 2014, 12:48 p.m. EDT
In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times, President Barack Obama
defended his administration=E2=80=99s foreign-policy approach in the Middle=
East.
In Syria, Obama said the idea that arming rebels would have made a
difference has =E2=80=9Calways been a fantasy.=E2=80=9D
The president=E2=80=99s interview with op-ed columnist Thomas Friedman, pub=
lished
online Friday, offered an inherent rebuke of Hillary Clinton, whose memoir
revealed that the former secretary of state wanted to arm moderate Syrian
rebels in the nascent stages of the war. In a newly published interview
with The Atlantic given before Obama=E2=80=99s interview, Hillary Clinton s=
aid the
failure to build a strong rebel force against the Assad regime =E2=80=9Clef=
t a big
vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled.=E2=80=9D
The president, though not mentioning his former secretary of state by name,
said such a plan was unlikely to work and was never going to happen.
=E2=80=9CThis idea that we could provide some light arms or even more sophi=
sticated
arms to what was essentially an opposition made up of former doctors,
farmers, pharmacists and so forth, and that they were going to be able to
battle not only a well-armed state but also a well-armed state backed by
Russia, backed by Iran, a battle-hardened Hezbollah, that was never in the
cards,=E2=80=9D the president said.
When asked to explain the U.S. military response to the humanitarian crisis
unfolding in the mountains of northern Iraq, Obama said there=E2=80=99s =E2=
=80=9Can
obligation=E2=80=9D to prevent genocide of the Yazidis at the hands of the =
Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant. Obama repeated the line that he doesn=E2=80=
=99t want
the U.S. to become the Kurdish air force, adding that it=E2=80=99s up to Ir=
aqis to
unify and maintain a stable government.
=E2=80=9CWe=E2=80=99re not going to let [ISIL] create some caliphate throug=
h Syria and
Iraq, but we can only do that if we know that we=E2=80=99ve got partners on=
the
ground who are capable of filling the void,=E2=80=9D Obama said.
*Politico: =E2=80=9CClinton hint at future fuels 2016 talk=E2=80=9D
*
By Katie Glueck
August 10, 2014, 1:05 p.m. EDT
Hillary Clinton says she expects her view of America=E2=80=99s role in the =
world to
be tested in the future =E2=80=9Cin more ways than one,=E2=80=9D a comment =
fueling
speculation about her presidential ambitions.
In a wide-ranging foreign policy interview with The Atlantic=E2=80=99s Jeff=
rey
Goldberg the former secretary of state and possible Democratic presidential
frontrunner agreed with Goldberg when he said that America=E2=80=99s defeat=
of
=E2=80=9Cfascism and communism is a pretty big deal.=E2=80=9D
=E2=80=9CThat=E2=80=99s how I feel! Maybe this is old-fashioned,=E2=80=9D s=
he said, adding, =E2=80=9COkay,
I feel that this might be an old-fashioned idea, but I=E2=80=99m about to f=
ind out,
in more ways than one.=E2=80=9D
In Goldberg=E2=80=99s view, that was a likely nod at a 2016 run.
But Clinton =E2=80=94 who has been on tour promoting =E2=80=9CHard Choices,=
=E2=80=9D her new memoir
about her time at the State Department =E2=80=94 has in other interviews ma=
de
similar comments about her future, though nothing concrete about a White
House run.
She also has indulged =E2=80=9Chypothetical=E2=80=9D questions about what a=
secretary of
state would bring to the presidency.
A spokesman for Clinton did not immediately respond Sunday to an emailed
request for comment on her statement.
*Washington Examiner: =E2=80=9CHillary Clinton distances herself from Presi=
dent
Obama's foreign policy=E2=80=9D
*
By Rebecca Berg
August 10, 2014, 1:12 p.m. EDT
Hillary Clinton is stepping away from President Obama on foreign policy.
The likely Democratic presidential candidate is distancing herself more
sharply than ever before from some important facets of President Obama's
foreign policy that evolved under her watch as secretary of state.
That includes calling the administration's lack of engagement in Syria a
"failure" and questioning Obama's guiding doctrine.
In an interview with the Atlantic magazine published Sunday, Clinton
diverged notably from her public record of support for decisions made by
the White House during her tenure, as she acknowledged key areas of
disagreement between her and President Obama.
Indeed, Clinton outright dismissed President Obama's guiding doctrine on
foreign policy, characterized repeatedly in media reports as, "Don't do
stupid stuff," rejecting that it could even be considered an "organizing
principle."
=E2=80=9CGreat nations need organizing principles, and =E2=80=98Don=E2=80=
=99t do stupid stuff=E2=80=99 is
not an organizing principle," Clinton said.
But, she qualified, "I think that that's a political message. It=E2=80=99s =
not
[Obama's] worldview."
"I think he was trying to communicate to the American people that he=E2=80=
=99s not
going to do something crazy," Clinton said, adding that she considers Obama
"incredibly smart" and "thoughtful."
Still, Clinton was willing to offer up her own organizing principle:
"Peace, progress, and prosperity."
Clinton also used strikingly harsh language =E2=80=94 including the word "f=
ailure"
=E2=80=94 to assess the administration's efforts to prevent the growth of I=
SIS, the
jihadist group with roots in Syria which is now driving conflict, and
threatening genocide, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.
The United States has responded within the past week with airstrikes and
relief drops. But, Clinton said, the current situation might have been
prevented had the U.S. aided groups fighting the oppressive government led
by President Bashar Assad, a position Obama opposed.
"I know that the failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the
people who were the originators of the protests against Assad=E2=80=94there=
were
Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle =E2=
=80=94 the
failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled,"
Clinton said.
Clinton's remarks hint at a political conundrum she would face should she
run for president. While her tenure as secretary of state would be central
to her claim to the presidency, Clinton will also need to tactfully create
separation between her individual role and the administration for which she
worked, which has been dogged by low approval ratings and could be a drag
on her bid.
Clinton is currently wrapping up a nationwide tour to promote her memoir,
Hard Choices, which detailed her tenure as secretary of state. She plans to
spend the last three weeks of August in the Hamptons with former President
Clinton.
*The Hill: =E2=80=9CHillary Clinton: PR battle 'tilted against' Israel=E2=
=80=9D
*
By Jesse Byrnes
August 10, 2014, 1:34 p.m. EDT
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ratcheted up her language
supporting America's strongest Middle East ally, saying the world opinion
is "historically tilted against Israel."
Clinton said this week in a sweeping interview published in The Atlantic on
Sunday that the nearly month-long conflict in Gaza has been "effectively
stage-managed" by the terrorist group Hamas.
"It=E2=80=99s the old PR problem that Israel has," Clinton said. "Yes, ther=
e are
substantive, deep levels of antagonism or anti-Semitism towards Israel,
because it=E2=80=99s a powerful state, a really effective military. And Ham=
as
paints itself as the defender of the rights of the Palestinians to have
their own state."
"So the PR battle is one that is historically tilted against Israel," she
added.
Since fighting began July 8, more than 1,900 Palestinians and 67 Israelis
have been killed, many on the Palestinian side being civilians, according
to The Associated Press. Thousands have been wounded.
"There=E2=80=99s no doubt in my mind that Hamas initiated this conflict" fo=
r
political leverage, Clinton said, noting the difficulty placing blame for
civilian deaths in the "fog of war."
"The ultimate responsibility has to rest on Hamas and the decisions it
made," she said, later adding, "I would not put Hamas in the category of
people we could work with."
Clinton, who in her book Hard Choices touts her diplomatic work securing
the last long-term cease-fire in 2012, noted that her husband, former
President Bill Clinton, who is "adored in Israel," got Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to give up territory and highlighted her own
ability to work with the Israeli leader.
"Dealing with Bibi is not easy, so people get frustrated and they lose
sight of what we=E2=80=99re trying to achieve here," she said.
When asked why Secretary of State John Kerry had spent so much time
focusing on the Israel-Palestinian situation while Islamic extremists
captured large portions of Iraq and Syria, Clinton was frank on the U.S.
commitment to Israel.
"As the U.S., as a U.S. official, you have to pay attention to anything
that threatens Israel directly, or anything in the larger Middle East that
arises out of the Palestinian-Israeli situation. That=E2=80=99s just a give=
n," she
said.
*Calendar:*
*Sec. Clinton's upcoming appearances as reported online. Not an official
schedule.*
=C2=B7 August 13 =E2=80=93 Martha=E2=80=99s Vinyard, MA: Sec. Clinton sign=
s books at Bunch of
Grapes (HillaryClintonMemoir.com
)
=C2=B7 August 16 =E2=80=93 East Hampton, New York: Sec. Clinton signs book=
s at
Bookhampton East Hampton (HillaryClintonMemoir.com
)
=C2=B7 August 28 =E2=80=93 San Francisco, CA: Sec. Clinton keynotes Nexent=
a=E2=80=99s OpenSDx
Summit (BusinessWire
)
=C2=B7 September 4 =E2=80=93 Las Vegas, NV: Sec. Clinton speaks at the Nat=
ional Clean
Energy Summit (Solar Novis Today
)
=C2=B7 October 2 =E2=80=93 Miami Beach, FL: Sec. Clinton keynotes the CREW=
Network
Convention & Marketplace (CREW Network
)
=C2=B7 October 13 =E2=80=93 Las Vegas, NV: Sec. Clinton keynotes the UNLV =
Foundation
Annual Dinner (UNLV
)
=C2=B7 ~ October 13-16 =E2=80=93 San Francisco, CA: Sec. Clinton keynotes
salesforce.com Dreamforce
conference (salesforce.com
)
=C2=B7 December 4 =E2=80=93 Boston, MA: Sec. Clinton speaks at the Massac=
husetts
Conference for Women (MCFW )
--001a11c3ef46c5977205004ac264
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

"Clinton responded to th=
is idea with great enthusiasm: =E2=80=9CThat=E2=80=99s how I feel! Maybe th=
is is old-fashioned.=E2=80=9D And then she seemed to signal that, yes, inde=
ed, she=E2=80=99s planning to run for president. =E2=80=9COkay, I feel that=
this might be an old-fashioned idea, but I=E2=80=99m about to find out, in=
more ways than one.=E2=80=9D"

=E2=80=9CHillary Clinton has taken her furthest=
and most public step away from President Barack Obama, describing his deci=
sion against helping build a =E2=80=98credible=E2=80=99 force that could ba=
ttle the Assad regime in Syria early on as a =E2=80=98failure.=E2=80=99=E2=
=80=9D

=E2=80=9CThe president=E2=80=99s interview with=
op-ed columnist Thomas Friedman, published online Friday, offered an inher=
ent rebuke of Hillary Clinton, whose memoir revealed that the former secret=
ary of state wanted to arm moderate Syrian rebels in the nascent stages of =
the war. In a newly published interview with The Atlantic given before Obam=
a=E2=80=99s interview, Hillary Clinton said the failure to build a strong r=
ebel force against the Assad regime =E2=80=98left a big vacuum, which the j=
ihadists have now filled.=E2=80=99=E2=80=9D

=E2=80=9CHillary Clinton says she expects her v=
iew of America=E2=80=99s role in the world to be tested in the future =E2=
=80=98in more ways than one,=E2=80=99 a comment fueling speculation about h=
er presidential ambitions.=E2=80=9D

[Subtitle:] The former secretary of state, and probable candidate for=
president, outlines her foreign-policy doctrine. She says this about Presi=
dent Obama's: "Great nations need organizing principles, and '=
Don't do stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle."

=C2=A0

President Obama has long-ridi=
culed the idea that the U.S., early in the Syrian civil war, could have sha=
ped the forces fighting the Assad regime, thereby stopping al Qaeda-inspire=
d groups=E2=80=94like the one rampaging across Syria and Iraq today=E2=80=
=94from seizing control of the rebellion. In an interview in February, the =
president told me that =E2=80=9Cwhen you have a professional army ... fight=
ing against a farmer, a carpenter, an engineer who started out as protester=
s and suddenly now see themselves in the midst of a civil conflict=E2=80=94=
the notion that we could have, in a clean way that didn=E2=80=99t commit U.=
S. military forces, changed the equation on the ground there was never true=
.=E2=80=9D

=C2=A0

Well, his former secretary of=
state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, isn=E2=80=99t buying it. In an interview wi=
th me earlier this week, she used her sharpest language yet to describe the=
"failure" that resulted from the decision to keep the U.S. on th=
e sidelines during the first phase of the Syrian uprising.

=C2=A0

=E2=80=9CThe failure to help =
build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators o=
f the protests against Assad=E2=80=94there were Islamists, there were secul=
arists, there was everything in the middle=E2=80=94the failure to do that l=
eft a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled,=E2=80=9D Clinton sai=
d.

=C2=A0

As she writes in her memoir o=
f her State Department years, Hard Choices, she was an inside-the-administr=
ation advocate of doing more to help the Syrian rebellion. Now, her support=
ers argue, her position has been vindicated by recent events.

=C2=A0

Professional Clinton-watchers=
(and there are battalions of them) have told me that it is only a matter o=
f time before she makes a more forceful attempt to highlight her difference=
s with the (unpopular) president she ran against, and then went on to serve=
. On a number of occasions during my interview with her, I got the sense th=
at this effort is already underway. (And for what it's worth, I also th=
ink she may have told me that she=E2=80=99s running for president=E2=80=94s=
ee below for her not-entirely-ambiguous nod in that direction.)

=C2=A0

Of course, Clinton had many k=
ind words for the =E2=80=9Cincredibly intelligent=E2=80=9D and =E2=80=9Ctho=
ughtful=E2=80=9D Obama, and she expressed sympathy and understanding for th=
e devilishly complicated challenges he faces. But she also suggested that s=
he finds his approach to foreign policy overly cautious, and she made the c=
ase that America needs a leader who believes that the country, despite its =
various missteps, is an indispensable force for good. At one point, I menti=
oned the slogan President Obama recently coined to describe his foreign-pol=
icy doctrine: =E2=80=9CDon=E2=80=99t do stupid shit=E2=80=9D (an expression=
often rendered as =E2=80=9CDon=E2=80=99t do stupid stuff=E2=80=9D in less-=
than-private encounters).

=C2=A0

This is what Clinton said abo=
ut Obama=E2=80=99s slogan: =E2=80=9CGreat nations need organizing principle=
s, and =E2=80=98Don=E2=80=99t do stupid stuff=E2=80=99 is not an organizing=
principle.=E2=80=9D

=C2=A0

She softened the blow by noti=
ng that Obama was =E2=80=9Ctrying to communicate to the American people tha=
t he=E2=80=99s not going to do something crazy,=E2=80=9D but she repeatedly=
suggested that the U.S. sometimes appears to be withdrawing from the world=
stage.

=C2=A0

During a discussion about the=
dangers of jihadism (a topic that has her =E2=80=9Chepped-up," she to=
ld me moments after she greeted me at her office in New York) and of the so=
rt of resurgent nationalism seen in Russia today, I noted that Americans ar=
e quite wary right now of international commitment-making. She responded by=
arguing that there is a happy medium between bellicose posturing (of the s=
ort she associated with the George W. Bush administration) and its opposite=
, a focus on withdrawal.

=C2=A0

=E2=80=9CYou know, when you=
=E2=80=99re down on yourself, and when you are hunkering down and pulling b=
ack, you=E2=80=99re not going to make any better decisions than when you we=
re aggressively, belligerently putting yourself forward,=E2=80=9D she said.=
=E2=80=9COne issue is that we don=E2=80=99t even tell our own story very w=
ell these days.=E2=80=9D

=C2=A0

I responded by saying that I =
thought that =E2=80=9Cdefeating fascism and communism is a pretty big deal.=
=E2=80=9D In other words, that the U.S., on balance, has done a good job of=
advancing the cause of freedom.

=C2=A0

Clinton responded to this ide=
a with great enthusiasm: =E2=80=9CThat=E2=80=99s how I feel! Maybe this is =
old-fashioned.=E2=80=9D And then she seemed to signal that, yes, indeed, sh=
e=E2=80=99s planning to run for president. =E2=80=9COkay, I feel that this =
might be an old-fashioned idea, but I=E2=80=99m about to find out, in more =
ways than one.=E2=80=9D

=C2=A0

She said that the resilience,=
and expansion, of Islamist terrorism means that the U.S. must develop an =
=E2=80=9Coverarching=E2=80=9D strategy to confront it, and she equated this=
struggle to the one the U.S. waged against Soviet-led communism.

=C2=A0

=E2=80=9COne of the reasons w=
hy I worry about what=E2=80=99s happening in the Middle East right now is b=
ecause of the breakout capacity of jihadist groups that can affect Europe, =
can affect the United States,=E2=80=9D she said. =E2=80=9CJihadist groups a=
re governing territory. They will never stay there, though. They are driven=
to expand. Their raison d=E2=80=99etre is to be against the West, against =
the Crusaders, against the fill-in-the-blank=E2=80=94and we all fit into on=
e of these categories. How do we try to contain that? I=E2=80=99m thinking =
a lot about containment, deterrence, and defeat.=E2=80=9D

=C2=A0

She went on, =E2=80=9CYou kno=
w, we did a good job in containing the Soviet Union but we made a lot of mi=
stakes, we supported really nasty guys, we did some things that we are not =
particularly proud of, from Latin America to Southeast Asia, but we did hav=
e a kind of overarching framework about what we were trying to do that did =
lead to the defeat of the Soviet Union and the collapse of Communism. That =
was our objective. We achieved it.=E2=80=9D (This was one of those moments,=
by the way, when I was absolutely sure I wasn=E2=80=99t listening to Presi=
dent Obama, who is loath to discuss the threat of Islamist terrorism in suc=
h a sweeping manner.)

=C2=A0

Much of my conversation with =
Clinton focused on the Gaza war. She offered a vociferous defense of Israel=
, and of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as well. This is noteworth=
y because, as secretary of state, she spent a lot of time yelling at Netany=
ahu on the administration's behalf over Israel=E2=80=99s West Bank sett=
lement policy. Now, she is leaving no daylight at all between the Israelis =
and herself.

=C2=A0

=E2=80=9CI think Israel did w=
hat it had to do to respond to the rockets,=E2=80=9D she told me. =E2=80=9C=
Israel has a right to defend itself. The steps Hamas has taken to embed roc=
kets and command-and-control facilities and tunnel entrances in civilian ar=
eas, this makes a response by Israel difficult.=E2=80=9D

=C2=A0

I asked her if she believed t=
hat Israel had done enough to prevent the deaths of children and other inno=
cent people.

=C2=A0

=C2=A0=E2=80=9C[J]ust as we t=
ry to do in the United States and be as careful as possible in going after =
targets to avoid civilians,=E2=80=9D mistakes are made, she said. =E2=80=9C=
We=E2=80=99ve made them. I don=E2=80=99t know a nation, no matter what its =
values are=E2=80=94and I think that democratic nations have demonstrably be=
tter values in a conflict position=E2=80=94that hasn=E2=80=99t made errors,=
but ultimately the responsibility rests with Hamas.=E2=80=9D

=C2=A0

She went on to say that =E2=
=80=9Cit=E2=80=99s impossible to know what happens in the fog of war. Some =
reports say, maybe it wasn=E2=80=99t the exact UN school that was bombed, b=
ut it was the annex to the school next door where they were firing the rock=
ets. And I do think oftentimes that the anguish you are privy to because of=
the coverage, and the women and the children and all the rest of that, mak=
es it very difficult to sort through to get to the truth.=E2=80=9D

=C2=A0

She continued, =E2=80=9CThere=
=E2=80=99s no doubt in my mind that Hamas initiated this conflict. =E2=80=
=A6 So the ultimate responsibility has to rest on Hamas and the decisions i=
t made.=E2=80=9D

=C2=A0

When I asked her about the in=
tense international focus on Gaza, she was quick to identify anti-Semitism =
as an important motivating factor in criticism of Israel. =E2=80=9CIt is st=
riking =E2=80=A6 that you have more than 170,000 people dead in Syria. =E2=
=80=A6 You have Russia massing battalions=E2=80=94Russia, that actually ann=
exed and is occupying part of a UN member-state=E2=80=94and I fear that it =
will do even more to prevent the incremental success of the Ukrainian gover=
nment to take back its own territory, other than Crimea. More than 1,000 pe=
ople have been killed in Ukraine on both sides, not counting the [Malaysia =
Airlines] plane, and yet we do see this enormous international reaction aga=
inst Israel, and Israel=E2=80=99s right to defend itself, and the way Israe=
l has to defend itself. This reaction is uncalled for and unfair.=E2=80=9D<=
/p>

=C2=A0

She went on, =E2=80=9CYou can=
=E2=80=99t ever discount anti-Semitism, especially with what=E2=80=99s goin=
g on in Europe today. There are more demonstrations against Israel by an ex=
ponential amount than there are against Russia seizing part of Ukraine and =
shooting down a civilian airliner. So there=E2=80=99s something else at wor=
k here than what you see on TV.=E2=80=9D Clinton also blamed Hamas for =E2=
=80=9Cstage-managing=E2=80=9D the conflict. =E2=80=9CWhat you see is largel=
y what Hamas invites and permits Western journalists to report on from Gaza=
. It=E2=80=99s the old PR problem that Israel has. Yes, there are substanti=
ve, deep levels of antagonism or anti-Semitism towards Israel, because it=
=E2=80=99s a powerful state, a really effective military. And Hamas paints =
itself as the defender of the rights of the Palestinians to have their own =
state. So the PR battle is one that is historically tilted against Israel.=
=E2=80=9D

=C2=A0

Clinton also seemed to take a=
n indirect shot at administration critics of Netanyahu, who has argued that=
the rise of Muslim fundamentalism in the Middle East means that Israel can=
not, in the foreseeable future, withdraw its forces from much of the West B=
ank. =E2=80=9CIf I were the prime minister of Israel, you=E2=80=99re damn r=
ight I would expect to have control over security, because even if I=E2=80=
=99m dealing with [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas, who is 7=
9 years old, and other members of Fatah, who are enjoying a better lifestyl=
e and making money on all kinds of things, that does not protect Israel fro=
m the influx of Hamas or cross-border attacks from anywhere else. With Syri=
a and Iraq, it is all one big threat. So Netanyahu could not do this in goo=
d conscience.=E2=80=9D

=C2=A0

She also struck a notably har=
d line on Iran=E2=80=99s nuclear demands. =E2=80=9CI=E2=80=99ve always been=
in the camp that held that they did not have a right to enrichment,=E2=80=
=9D Clinton said. =E2=80=9CContrary to their claim, there is no such thing =
as a right to enrich. This is absolutely unfounded. There is no such right.=
I am well aware that I am not at the negotiating table anymore, but I thin=
k it=E2=80=99s important to send a signal to everybody who is there that th=
ere cannot be a deal unless there is a clear set of restrictions on Iran. T=
he preference would be no enrichment. The potential fallback position would=
be such little enrichment that they could not break out.=E2=80=9D When I a=
sked her if the demands of Israel, and of America=E2=80=99s Arab allies, th=
at Iran not be allowed any uranium-enrichment capability whatsoever were mi=
litant or unrealistic, she said, =E2=80=9CI think it=E2=80=99s important th=
at they stake out that position.=E2=80=9D

=C2=A0

What follows is a transcript =
of our conversation. It has been edited for clarity but not for length, as =
you will see. Two other things to look for: First, the masterful way in whi=
ch Clinton says she has drawn no conclusions about events in Syria and else=
where, and then draws rigorously reasoned conclusions. Second, her fascinat=
ing and complicated analysis of the Muslim Brotherhood's ill-fated dall=
iance with democracy.

=C2=A0

***

=C2=A0

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: It seems that you=E2=80=99ve =
shifted your position on Iran=E2=80=99s nuclear ambitions. By [chief U.S. n=
egotiator] Wendy Sherman=E2=80=99s definition of maximalism, you=E2=80=99ve=
taken a fairly maximalist position=E2=80=94little or no enrichment for Ira=
n. Are you taking a harder line than your former colleagues in the Obama ad=
ministration are taking on this matter?

=C2=A0

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: It=E2=
=80=99s a consistent line. I=E2=80=99ve always been in the camp that held t=
hat they did not have a right to enrichment. Contrary to their claim, there=
is no such thing as a right to enrich. This is absolutely unfounded. There=
is no such right. I am well aware that I am not at the negotiating table a=
nymore, but I think it=E2=80=99s important to send a signal to everybody wh=
o is there that there cannot be a deal unless there is a clear set of restr=
ictions on Iran. The preference would be no enrichment. The potential fallb=
ack position would be such little enrichment that they could not break out.=
So, little or no enrichment has always been my position.

=C2=A0

JG: Am I wrong in saying that=
the Obama administration=E2=80=99s negotiators have a more flexible unders=
tanding of this issue at the moment?

=C2=A0

HRC: I don=E2=80=99t want to =
speak for them, but I would argue that Iran, through the voice of the supre=
me leader, has taken a very maximalist position=E2=80=94he wants 190,000 ce=
ntrifuges and the right to enrich. And some in our Congress, and some of ou=
r best friends, have taken the opposite position=E2=80=94absolutely no enri=
chment. I think in a negotiation you need to be very clear about what it is=
going to take to move the other side. I think at the moment there is a big=
debate going on in Tehran about what they can or should do in order to get=
relief from the sanctions. It=E2=80=99s my understanding that we still hav=
e a united P5+1 position, which is intensive inspections, very clear limits=
on what they can do in their facilities that they would permitted to opera=
te, and then how they handle this question of enrichment, whether it=E2=80=
=99s done from the outside, or whether it can truly be constrained to meet =
what I think our standard should be of little-to-no enrichment. That=E2=80=
=99s what this negotiation is about.

=C2=A0

JG: But there is no sign that=
the Iranians are willing to pull back=E2=80=94freezing in place is the far=
thest they seem to be willing to go. Am I wrong?

=C2=A0

HRC: We don=E2=80=99t know. I=
think there=E2=80=99s a political debate. I think you had the position sta=
ked out by the supreme leader that they=E2=80=99re going to get to do what =
they want to do, and that they don=E2=80=99t have any intention of having a=
nuclear weapon but they nevertheless want 190,000 centrifuges (laughs). I =
think the political, non-clerical side of the equation is basically saying,=
=E2=80=9CLook, you know, getting relief from these sanctions is economical=
ly and politically important to us. We have our hands full in Syria and Ira=
q, just to name two places, maybe increasingly in Lebanon, and who knows wh=
at=E2=80=99s going to happen with us and Hamas. So what harm does it do to =
have a very strict regime that we can live under until we determine that ma=
ybe we won=E2=80=99t have to any longer?=E2=80=9D That, I think, is the oth=
er side of the argument.

=C2=A0

JG: Would you be content with=
an Iran that is perpetually a year away from being able to reach nuclear-b=
reakout capability?

=C2=A0

HRC: I would like it to be mo=
re than year. I think it should be more than year. No enrichment at all wou=
ld make everyone breathe easier. If, however, they want a little bit for th=
e Tehran research reactor, or a little bit for this scientific researcher, =
but they=E2=80=99ll never go above 5 percent enrichment=E2=80=94

JG: So what the Gulf states want, and what the =
Israelis want, which is to say no enrichment at all, is not a militant, unr=
ealistic position?

=C2=A0

HRC: It=E2=80=99s not an unre=
alistic position. I think it=E2=80=99s important that they stake out that p=
osition.

=C2=A0

JG: So, Gaza. As you write in=
your book, you negotiated the last long-term ceasefire in 2012. Are you su=
rprised at all that it didn=E2=80=99t hold?

=C2=A0

HRC: I=E2=80=99m surprised th=
at it held as long as it did. But given the changes in the region, the fall=
of [former Egyptian President Mohamed] Morsi, his replacement by [Abdel Fa=
ttah] al-Sisi, the corner that Hamas felt itself in, I=E2=80=99m not surpri=
sed that Hamas provoked another attack.

=C2=A0

JG: The Israeli response, was=
it disproportionate?

=C2=A0

HRC: Israel was attacked by r=
ockets from Gaza. Israel has a right to defend itself. The steps Hamas has =
taken to embed rockets and command-and-control facilities and tunnel entran=
ces in civilian areas, this makes a response by Israel difficult. Of course=
Israel, just like the United States, or any other democratic country, shou=
ld do everything they can possibly do to limit civilian casualties.

=C2=A0

JG: Do you think Israel did e=
nough to limit civilian casualties?

=C2=A0

HRC: It=E2=80=99s unclear. I =
think Israel did what it had to do to respond to the rockets. And there is =
the surprising number and complexity of the tunnels, and Hamas has consiste=
ntly, not just in this conflict, but in the past, been less than protective=
of their civilians.

=C2=A0

JG: Before we continue talkin=
g endlessly about Gaza, can I ask you if you think we spend too much time o=
n Gaza and on Israel-Palestine generally? I ask because over the past year =
or so your successor spent a tremendous amount of time on the Israel-Palest=
inian file and in the same period of time an al Qaeda-inspired organization=
took over half of Syria and Iraq.

=C2=A0

HRC: Right, right.

=C2=A0

JG: I understand that secretaries of state can =
do more than one thing at a time. But what is the cause of this preoccupati=
on?

=C2=A0

HRC: I=E2=80=99ve thought a l=
ot about this, because you do have a number of conflicts going on right now=
. As the U.S., as a U.S. official, you have to pay attention to anything th=
at threatens Israel directly, or anything in the larger Middle East that ar=
ises out of the Palestinian-Israeli situation. That=E2=80=99s just a given.=

=C2=A0

It is striking, however, that=
you have more than 170,000 people dead in Syria. You have the vacuum that =
has been created by the relentless assault by Assad on his own population, =
an assault that has bred these extremist groups, the most well-known of whi=
ch, ISIS=E2=80=94or ISIL=E2=80=94is now literally expanding its territory i=
nside Syria and inside Iraq. You have Russia massing battalions=E2=80=94Rus=
sia, that actually annexed and is occupying part of a UN member state=E2=80=
=94and I fear that it will do even more to prevent the incremental success =
of the Ukrainian government to take back its own territory, other than Crim=
ea. More than 1,000 people have been killed in Ukraine on both sides, not c=
ounting the [Malaysia Airlines] plane, and yet we do see this enormous inte=
rnational reaction against Israel, and Israel=E2=80=99s right to defend its=
elf, and the way Israel has to defend itself. This reaction is uncalled for=
and unfair.

=C2=A0

JG: What do you think causes =
this reaction?

=C2=A0

HRC: There are a number of fa=
ctors going into it. You can=E2=80=99t ever discount anti-Semitism, especia=
lly with what=E2=80=99s going on in Europe today. There are more demonstrat=
ions against Israel by an exponential amount than there are against Russia =
seizing part of Ukraine and shooting down a civilian airliner. So there=E2=
=80=99s something else at work here than what you see on TV.

=C2=A0

And what you see on TV is so =
effectively stage-managed by Hamas, and always has been. What you see is la=
rgely what Hamas invites and permits Western journalists to report on from =
Gaza. It=E2=80=99s the old PR problem that Israel has. Yes, there are subst=
antive, deep levels of antagonism or anti-Semitism towards Israel, because =
it=E2=80=99s a powerful state, a really effective military. And Hamas paint=
s itself as the defender of the rights of the Palestinians to have their ow=
n state. So the PR battle is one that is historically tilted against Israel=
.

=C2=A0

JG: Nevertheless there are hu=
ndreds of children=E2=80=94

=C2=A0

HRC: Absolutely, and it=E2=80=
=99s dreadful.

=C2=A0

JG: Who do you hold responsib=
le for those deaths? How do you parcel out blame?

=C2=A0

HRC: I=E2=80=99m not sure it=
=E2=80=99s possible to parcel out blame because it=E2=80=99s impossible to =
know what happens in the fog of war. Some reports say, maybe it wasn=E2=80=
=99t the exact UN school that was bombed, but it was the annex to the schoo=
l next door where they were firing the rockets. And I do think oftentimes t=
hat the anguish you are privy to because of the coverage, and the women and=
the children and all the rest of that, makes it very difficult to sort thr=
ough to get to the truth.

=C2=A0

There=E2=80=99s no doubt in m=
y mind that Hamas initiated this conflict and wanted to do so in order to l=
everage its position, having been shut out by the Egyptians post-Morsi, hav=
ing been shunned by the Gulf, having been pulled into a technocratic govern=
ment with Fatah and the Palestinian Authority that might have caused better=
governance and a greater willingness on the part of the people of Gaza to =
move away from tolerating Hamas in their midst. So the ultimate responsibil=
ity has to rest on Hamas and the decisions it made.

=C2=A0

That doesn=E2=80=99t mean tha=
t, just as we try to do in the United States and be as careful as possible =
in going after targets to avoid civilians, that there aren=E2=80=99t mistak=
es that are made. We=E2=80=99ve made them. I don=E2=80=99t know a nation, n=
o matter what its values are=E2=80=94and I think that democratic nations ha=
ve demonstrably better values in a conflict position=E2=80=94that hasn=E2=
=80=99t made errors, but ultimately the responsibility rests with Hamas.

=C2=A0

JG: Several years ago, when y=
ou were in the Senate, we had a conversation about what would move Israeli =
leaders to make compromises for peace. You=E2=80=99ve had a lot of argument=
s with Netanyahu. What is your thinking on Netanyahu now?

=C2=A0

HRC: Let=E2=80=99s step back.=
First of all, [former Israeli Prime Minister] Yitzhak Rabin was prepared t=
o do so much and he was murdered for that belief. And then [former Israeli =
Prime Minister] Ehud Barak offered everything you could imagine being given=
under any realistic scenario to the Palestinians for their state, and [for=
mer Palestinian leader Yasir] Arafat walked away. I don=E2=80=99t care abou=
t the revisionist history. I know that Arafat walked away, okay? Everybody =
says, =E2=80=9CAmerican needs to say something.=E2=80=9D Well, we said it, =
it was the Clinton parameters, we put it out there, and Bill Clinton is ado=
red in Israel, as you know. He got Netanyahu to give up territory, which Ne=
tanyahu believes lost him the prime ministership [in his first term], but h=
e moved in that direction, as hard as it was.

=C2=A0

Bush pretty much ignored what=
was going on and they made a terrible error in the Palestinian elections [=
in which Hamas came to power in Gaza], but he did come with the Roadmap [to=
Peace] and the Roadmap was credible and it talked about what needed to be =
done, and this is one area where I give the Palestinians credit. Under [for=
mer Palestinian Prime Minister] Salam Fayyad, they made a lot of progress.<=
/p>

=C2=A0

I had the last face-to-face n=
egotiations between Abbas and Netanyahu. [Secretary of State John] Kerry ne=
ver got there. I had them in the room three times with [former Middle East =
negotiator] George Mitchell and me, and that was it. And I saw Netanyahu mo=
ve from being against the two-state solution to announcing his support for =
it, to considering all kinds of Barak-like options, way far from what he is=
, and what he is comfortable with.

=C2=A0

Now I put Jerusalem in a diff=
erent category. That is the hardest issue, Again, based on my experience=E2=
=80=94and you know, I got Netanyahu to agree to the unprecedented=C2=A0 set=
tlement freeze, it did not cover East Jerusalem, but it did cover the West =
Bank and it was actually legitimate and it did stop new housing starts for =
10 months. It took me nine months to get Abbas into the negotiations even a=
fter we delivered on the settlement freeze, he had a million reasons, some =
of them legitimate, some of them the same old, same old.

=C2=A0

So what I tell people is, yea=
h, if I were the prime minister of Israel, you=E2=80=99re damn right I woul=
d expect to have control over security [on the West Bank], because even if =
I=E2=80=99m dealing with Abbas, who is 79 years old, and other members of F=
atah, who are enjoying a better lifestyle and making money on all kinds of =
things, that does not protect Israel from the influx of Hamas or cross-bord=
er attacks from anywhere else. With Syria and Iraq, it is all one big threa=
t. So Netanyahu could not do this in good conscience. If this were Rabin or=
Barak in his place=E2=80=94and I=E2=80=99ve talked to Ehud about this=E2=
=80=94they would have to demand a level of security that would be provided =
by the [Israel Defense Forces] for a period of time. And in my meetings wit=
h them I got Abbas to about six, seven, eight years on continued IDF presen=
ce. Now he=E2=80=99s fallen back to three, but he was with me at six, seven=
, eight. I got Netanyahu to go from forever to 2025. That=E2=80=99s a negot=
iation, okay? So I know. Dealing with Bibi is not easy, so people get frust=
rated and they lose sight of what we=E2=80=99re trying to achieve here.

=C2=A0

JG: You go out of your way in=
Hard Choices to praise Robert Ford, who recently quit as U.S. ambassador t=
o Syria, as an excellent diplomat. Ford quit in protest and has recently wr=
itten strongly about what he sees as the inadequacies of Obama administrati=
on policy. Do you agree with Ford that we are at fault for not doing enough=
to build up a credible Syrian opposition when we could have?

=C2=A0

HRC: I have the highest regar=
d for Robert. I=E2=80=99m the one who convinced the administration to send =
an ambassador to Syria. You know, this is why I called the chapter on Syria=
=E2=80=9CA Wicked Problem.=E2=80=9D I can=E2=80=99t sit here today and say=
that if we had done what I recommended, and what Robert Ford recommended, =
that we=E2=80=99d be in a demonstrably different place.

=C2=A0

JG: That=E2=80=99s the presid=
ent=E2=80=99s argument, that we wouldn=E2=80=99t be in a different place.=
p>

=C2=A0

HRC: Well, I did believe, whi=
ch is why I advocated this, that if we were to carefully vet, train, and eq=
uip early on a core group of the developing Free Syrian Army, we would, num=
ber one, have some better insight into what was going on on the ground. Two=
, we would have been helped in standing up a credible political opposition,=
which would prove to be very difficult, because there was this constant st=
ruggle between what was largely an exile group outside of Syria trying to c=
laim to be the political opposition, and the people on the ground, primaril=
y those doing the fighting and dying, who rejected that, and we were never =
able to bridge that, despite a lot of efforts that Robert and others made.<=
/p>

=C2=A0

So I did think that eventuall=
y, and I said this at the time, in a conflict like this, the hard men with =
the guns are going to be the more likely actors in any political transition=
than those on the outside just talking. And therefore we needed to figure =
out how we could support them on the ground, better equip them, and we didn=
=E2=80=99t have to go all the way, and I totally understand the cautions th=
at we had to contend with, but we=E2=80=99ll never know. And I don=E2=80=99=
t think we can claim to know.

=C2=A0

JG: You do have a suspicion, =
though.

=C2=A0

HRC: Obviously. I advocated f=
or a position.

=C2=A0

JG: Do you think we=E2=80=99d=
be where we are with ISIS right now if the U.S. had done more three years =
ago to build up a moderate Syrian opposition?

=C2=A0

HRC: Well, I don=E2=80=99t kn=
ow the answer to that. I know that the failure to help build up a credible =
fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests again=
st Assad=E2=80=94there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was ev=
erything in the middle=E2=80=94the failure to do that left a big vacuum, wh=
ich the jihadists have now filled.

=C2=A0

They were often armed in an i=
ndiscriminate way by other forces and we had no skin in the game that reall=
y enabled us to prevent this indiscriminate arming.

=C2=A0

JG: Is there a chance that Pr=
esident Obama overlearned the lessons of the previous administration? In ot=
her words, if the story of the Bush administration is one of overreach, is =
the story of the Obama administration one of underreach?

=C2=A0

HRC: You know, I don=E2=80=99=
t think you can draw that conclusion. It=E2=80=99s a very key question. How=
do you calibrate, that=E2=80=99s the key issue. I think we have learned a =
lot during this period, but then how to apply it going forward will still t=
ake a lot of calibration and balancing. But you know, we helped overthrow [=
Libyan leader Muammar] Qaddafi.

=C2=A0

JG: But we didn=E2=80=99t sti=
ck around for the aftermath.

=C2=A0

HRC: Well, we did stick aroun=
d. We stuck around with offers of money and technical assistance, on everyt=
hing from getting rid of some of the nasty stuff he left behind, to border =
security, to training. It wasn=E2=80=99t just us, it was the Europeans as w=
ell. Some of the Gulf countries had their particular favorites. They certai=
nly stuck around and backed their favorite militias. It is not yet clear ho=
w the Libyans themselves will overcome the lack of security, which they inh=
erited from Qaddafi. Remember, they=E2=80=99ve had two good elections. They=
=E2=80=99ve elected moderates and secularists and a limited number of Islam=
ists, so you talk about democracy in action=E2=80=94the Libyans have done i=
t twice=E2=80=94but they can=E2=80=99t control the ground. But how can you =
help when you have so many different players who looted the stuffed warehou=
ses of every kind of weapon from the Qaddafi regime, some of which they=E2=
=80=99re using in Libya, some of which they=E2=80=99re passing out around t=
he region?

=C2=A0

So you can go back and argue =
either, we should we have helped the people of Libya try to overthrow a dic=
tator who, remember, killed Americans and did a lot of other bad stuff, or =
we should have been on the sidelines. In this case we helped, but that didn=
=E2=80=99t make the road any easier in Syria, where we said, =E2=80=9CIt=E2=
=80=99s messy, it=E2=80=99s complicated, we=E2=80=99re not sure what the ou=
tcome will be.=E2=80=9D So what I=E2=80=99m hoping for is that we sort out =
what we have learned, because we=E2=80=99ve tried a bunch of different appr=
oaches. Egypt is a perfect example. The revolution in Tahrir Square was not=
a Muslim Brotherhood revolution. It was not led by Islamists. They came ve=
ry late to the party. Mubarak falls and I=E2=80=99m in Cairo a short time a=
fter, meeting the leaders of this movement, and I=E2=80=99m saying, =E2=80=
=9COkay, who=E2=80=99s going to run for office? Who=E2=80=99s going to form=
a political party?=E2=80=9D and they=E2=80=99re saying, =E2=80=9CWe don=E2=
=80=99t do that, that=E2=80=99s not who we are.=E2=80=9D

=C2=A0

And I said that there are onl=
y two organized groups in this country, the military and the Muslim Brother=
hood, and what we have here is an old lesson that you can=E2=80=99t beat so=
mebody with nobody. There was a real opportunity here to, if a group had ar=
isen out of the revolution, to create a democratic Egyptian alternative. Di=
dn=E2=80=99t=C2=A0 happen. What do we have to think about? In order to do t=
hat better, I see a lot of questions that we have to be answering. I don=E2=
=80=99t think we can draw judgments yet. I think we can draw a judgment abo=
ut the Bush administration in terms of overreach, but I don=E2=80=99t know =
that we can reach a conclusion about underreach.

=C2=A0

JG: There is this moment in y=
our book, in which Morsi tells you not to worry about jihadists in the Sina=
i=E2=80=94he says in essence that now that a Muslim Brotherhood government =
is in charge, jihadists won=E2=80=99t feel the need to continue their campa=
ign. You write that this was either shockingly sinister or shockingly na=C3=
=AFve. Which one do you think it was?

=C2=A0

HRC: I think Morsi was na=C3=
=AFve. I=E2=80=99m just talking about Morsi, not necessarily anyone else in=
the Muslim Brotherhood. I think he genuinely believed that with the legiti=
macy of an elected Islamist government, that the jihadists would see that t=
here was a different route to power and influence and would be part of the =
political process. He had every hope, in fact, that the credible election o=
f a Muslim Brotherhood government would mean the end of jihadist activities=
within Egypt, and also exemplify that there=E2=80=99s a different way to p=
ower.

=C2=A0

The debate is between the bin=
Ladens of the world and the Muslim Brotherhood. The bin Ladens believe you=
can=E2=80=99t overthrow the infidels or the impure through politics. It ha=
s to be through violent resistance. So when I made the case to Morsi that w=
e were picking up a lot of intelligence about jihadist groups creating safe=
havens inside Sinai, and that this would be a threat not only to Israel bu=
t to Egypt, he just dismissed this out of hand, and then shortly thereafter=
a large group of Egyptian soldiers were murdered.

=C2=A0

JG: In an interview in 2011, =
I asked you if we should fear the Muslim Brotherhood=E2=80=94this is well b=
efore they came into power=E2=80=94and you said, =E2=80=98The jury is out.=
=E2=80=9D Is the jury still out for you today?

=C2=A0

HRC: I think the jury would c=
ome back with a lesser included offense, and that is a failure to govern in=
a democratic, inclusive manner while holding power in Cairo. The Muslim Br=
otherhood had the most extraordinary opportunity to demonstrate the potenti=
al for an Islamist movement to take responsibility for governance, and they=
were ill-prepared and unable to make the transition from movement to respo=
nsibility. We will see how they respond to the crackdown they=E2=80=99re un=
der in Egypt, but the Muslim Brotherhood itself, although it had close ties=
with Hamas, for example, had not evidenced, because they were kept under t=
ight control by Mubarak, the willingness to engage in violent conflict to a=
chieve their goals. So the jury is in on their failure to govern in a way t=
hat would win the confidence of the entire Egyptian electorate. The jury is=
out as to whether they morph into a violent jihadist resistance group.

=C2=A0

JG: There=E2=80=99s a critiqu=
e you hear of the Obama administration in the Gulf, in Jordan, in Israel, t=
hat it is a sign of naivet=C3=A9 to believe that there are Islamists you ca=
n work with, and that Hamas might even be a group that you could work with.=
Is there a role for political Islam in these countries? Can we ever find a=
way to work with them?

=C2=A0

HRC: I think it=E2=80=99s too=
soon to tell. I would not put Hamas in the category of people we could wor=
k with. I don=E2=80=99t think that is realistic because its whole reason fo=
r being is resistance against Israel, destruction of Israel, and it is marr=
ied to very nasty tactics and ideologies, including virulent anti-Semitism.=
I do not think they should be in any way treated as a legitimate interlocu=
tor, especially because if you do that, it redounds to the disadvantage of =
the Palestinian Authority, which has a lot of problems, but historically ha=
s changed its charter, moved away from the kind of guerrilla resistance mov=
ement of previous decades.

=C2=A0

I think you have to ask yours=
elf, could different leaders have made a difference in the Muslim Brotherho=
od=E2=80=99s governance of Egypt? We won=E2=80=99t know and we can=E2=80=99=
t know the answer to that question. We know that Morsi was ill-equipped to =
be president of Egypt. He had no political experience. He was an engineer, =
he was wedded to the ideology of top-down control.

=C2=A0

JG: But you=E2=80=99re open t=
o the idea that there are sophisticated Islamists out there?

=C2=A0

HRC: I think you=E2=80=99ve s=
een a level of sophistication in Tunisia. It=E2=80=99s a very different env=
ironment than Egypt, much smaller, but you=E2=80=99ve seen the Ennahda Part=
y evolve from being quite demanding that their position be accepted as the =
national position but then being willing to step back in the face of very s=
trong political opposition from secularists, from moderate Muslims, etc. So=
Tunisia might not be the tail that wags the dog, but it=E2=80=99s an inter=
esting tail. If you look at Morocco, where the king had a major role in org=
anizing the electoral change, you have a head of state who is a monarch who=
is descended from Muhammad, you have a government that is largely but not =
completely representative of the Muslim party of Morocco. So I think that t=
here are not a lot of analogies, but when you look around the world, there=
=E2=80=99s a Hindu nationalist party now, back in power in India. The big q=
uestion for Prime Minister Modi is how inclusive he will be as leader becau=
se of questions raised concerning his governance of Gujurat [the state he g=
overned, which was the scene of anti-Muslim riots in 2002]. There were cert=
ainly Christian parties in Europe, pre- and post-World War II. They had ver=
y strong values that they wanted to see their society follow, but they were=
steeped in democracy, so they were good political actors.

=C2=A0

JG: So, it=E2=80=99s not an i=
mpossibility.

=C2=A0

HRC: It=E2=80=99s not an impo=
ssibility. So far, it doesn=E2=80=99t seem likely. We have to say that. Bec=
ause for whatever reason, whatever combination of reasons, there hasn=E2=80=
=99t been the soil necessary to nurture the political side of the experienc=
e, for people whose primary self-definition is as Islamists.

=C2=A0

JG: Are we so egocentric, so =
Washington-centric, that we think that our decisions are dispositive? As se=
cretary, did you learn more about the possibilities of American power or th=
e limitations of American power?

=C2=A0

HRC: Both, but it=E2=80=99s n=
ot just about American power. It=E2=80=99s American values that also happen=
to be universal values. If you have no political=E2=80=94small =E2=80=9Cp=
=E2=80=9D=E2=80=94experience, it is really hard to go from a dictatorship t=
o anything resembling what you and I would call democracy. That=E2=80=99s t=
he lesson of Egypt. We didn=E2=80=99t invade Egypt. They did it themselves,=
and once they did it they looked around and didn=E2=80=99t know what they =
were supposed to do next.

=C2=A0

I think we=E2=80=99ve learned=
about the limits of our power to spread freedom and democracy. That=E2=80=
=99s one of the big lessons out of Iraq. But we=E2=80=99ve also learned abo=
ut the importance of our power, our influence, and our values appropriately=
deployed and explained. If you=E2=80=99re looking at what we could have do=
ne that would have been more effective, would have been more accepted by th=
e Egyptians on the political front, what could we have done that would have=
been more effective in Libya, where they did their elections really well u=
nder incredibly difficult circumstances but they looked around and they had=
no levers to pull because they had these militias out there. My passion is=
, let=E2=80=99s do some after-action reviews, let=E2=80=99s learn these les=
sons, let=E2=80=99s figure out how we=E2=80=99re going to have different an=
d better responses going forward.

=C2=A0

JG: Is the lesson for you, li=
ke it is for President Obama, =E2=80=9CDon=E2=80=99t do stupid shit=E2=80=
=9D?

=C2=A0

HRC: That=E2=80=99s a good le=
sson but it=E2=80=99s more complicated than that. Because your stupid may n=
ot be mine, and vice versa. I don=E2=80=99t think it was stupid for the Uni=
ted States to do everything we could to remove Qaddafi because that came fr=
om the bottom up. That was people asking us to help. It was stupid to do wh=
at we did in Iraq and to have no plan about what to do after we did it. Tha=
t was really stupid. I don=E2=80=99t think you can quickly jump to conclusi=
ons about what falls into the stupid and non-stupid categories. That=E2=80=
=99s what I=E2=80=99m arguing.

=C2=A0

JG: Do you think the next adm=
inistration, whoever it is, can find some harmony between muscular interven=
tion=E2=80=94=E2=80=9CWe must do something=E2=80=9D=E2=80=94vs. let=E2=80=
=99s just not do something stupid, let=E2=80=99s stay away from problems li=
ke Syria because it=E2=80=99s a wicked problem and not something we want to=
tackle?

=C2=A0

HRC: I think part of the chal=
lenge is that our government too often has a tendency to swing between thes=
e extremes. The pendulum swings back and then the pendulum swings the other=
way. What I=E2=80=99m arguing for is to take a hard look at what tools we =
have. Are they sufficient for the complex situations we=E2=80=99re going to=
face, or not? And what can we do to have better tools? I do think that is =
an important debate.

=C2=A0

One of the reasons why I worr=
y about what=E2=80=99s happening in the Middle East right now is because of=
the breakout capacity of jihadist groups that can affect Europe, can affec=
t the United States. Jihadist groups are governing territory. They will nev=
er stay there, though. They are driven to expand. Their raison d'=C3=AA=
tre is to be against the West, against the Crusaders, against the fill-in-t=
he-blank=E2=80=94and we all fit into one of these categories. How do we try=
to contain that? I=E2=80=99m thinking a lot about containment, deterrence,=
and defeat. You know, we did a good job in containing the Soviet Union, bu=
t we made a lot of mistakes, we supported really nasty guys, we did some th=
ings that we are not particularly proud of, from Latin America to Southeast=
Asia, but we did have a kind of overarching framework about what we were t=
rying to do that did lead to the defeat of the Soviet Union and the collaps=
e of Communism. That was our objective. We achieved it.

=C2=A0

Now the big mistake was think=
ing that, okay, the end of history has come upon us, after the fall of the =
Soviet Union. That was never true, history never stops and nationalisms wer=
e going to assert themselves, and then other variations on ideologies were =
going to claim=C2=A0 their space. Obviously, jihadi Islam is the prime exam=
ple, but not the only example=E2=80=94the effort by Putin to restore his vi=
sion of Russian greatness is another. In the world in which we are living r=
ight now, vacuums get filled by some pretty unsavory players.

=C2=A0

JG: There doesn=E2=80=99t see=
m to be a domestic constituency for the type of engagement you might symbol=
ize.

=C2=A0

HRC: Well, that=E2=80=99s bec=
ause most Americans think of engagement and go immediately to military enga=
gement. That=E2=80=99s why I use the phrase =E2=80=9Csmart power.=E2=80=9D =
I did it deliberately because I thought we had to have another way of talki=
ng about American engagement, other than unilateralism and the so-called bo=
ots on the ground.

=C2=A0

You know, when you=E2=80=99re=
down on yourself, and when you are hunkering down and pulling back, you=E2=
=80=99re not going to make any better decisions than when you were aggressi=
vely, belligerently putting yourself forward. One issue is that we don=E2=
=80=99t even tell our own story very well these days.

=C2=A0

JG: I think that defeating fa=
scism and communism is a pretty big deal.

=C2=A0

HRC: That=E2=80=99s how I fee=
l! Maybe this is old-fashioned. Okay, I feel that this might be an old-fash=
ioned idea=E2=80=94but I=E2=80=99m about to find out, in more ways than one=
.

=C2=A0

Great nations need organizing=
principles, and =E2=80=9CDon=E2=80=99t do stupid stuff=E2=80=9D is not an =
organizing principle. It may be a necessary brake on the actions you might =
take in order to promote a vision.

=C2=A0

JG: So why do you think the p=
resident went out of his way to suggest recently that that this is his fore=
ign policy in a nutshell?

=C2=A0

HRC: I think he was trying to=
communicate to the American people that he=E2=80=99s not going to do somet=
hing crazy. I=E2=80=99ve sat in too many rooms with the president. He=E2=80=
=99s thoughtful, he=E2=80=99s incredibly smart, and able to analyze a lot o=
f different factors that are all moving at the same time. I think he is cau=
tious because he knows what he inherited, both the two wars and the economi=
c front, and he has expended a lot of capital and energy trying to pull us =
out of the hole we=E2=80=99re in.

=C2=A0

So I think that that=E2=80=99=
s a political message. It=E2=80=99s not his worldview, if that makes sense =
to you.

=C2=A0

JG: There is an idea in some =
quarters that the administration shows signs of believing that we, the U.S.=
, aren=E2=80=99t so great, so we shouldn=E2=80=99t be telling people what t=
o do.

=C2=A0

HRC: I know that that is an o=
pinion held by a certain group of Americans, I get all that. It=E2=80=99s n=
ot where I=E2=80=99m at.

=C2=A0

JG: What is your organizing p=
rinciple, then?

=C2=A0

HRC: Peace, progress, and pro=
sperity. This worked for a very long time. Take prosperity. That=E2=80=99s =
a huge domestic challenge for us. If we don=E2=80=99t restore the American =
dream for Americans, then you can forget about any kind of continuing leade=
rship in the world. Americans deserve to feel secure in their own lives, in=
their own middle-class aspirations, before you go to them and say, =E2=80=
=9CWe=E2=80=99re going to have to enforce navigable sea lanes in the South =
China Sea.=E2=80=9D You=E2=80=99ve got to take care of your home first. Tha=
t=E2=80=99s another part of the political messaging that you have to engage=
in right now. People are not only turned off about being engaged in the wo=
rld, they=E2=80=99re pretty discouraged about what=E2=80=99s happening here=
at home.

=C2=A0

I think people want=E2=80=94a=
nd this is a generalization I will go ahead and make=E2=80=94people want to=
make sure our economic situation improves and that our political decision-=
making improves. Whether they articulate it this way or not, I think people=
feel like we=E2=80=99re facing really important challenges here at home: T=
he economy is not growing, the middle class is not feeling like they are se=
cure, and we are living in a time of gridlock and dysfunction that is just =
frustrating and outraging.

=C2=A0

People assume that we=E2=80=
=99re going to have to do what we do so long as it=E2=80=99s not stupid, bu=
t what people want us to focus on are problems here at home. If you were to=
scratch below the surface on that=E2=80=94and I haven=E2=80=99t looked at =
the research or the polling=E2=80=94but I think people would say, first thi=
ngs first. Let=E2=80=99s make sure we are taking care of our people and we=
=E2=80=99re doing it in a way that will bring rewards to those of us who wo=
rk hard, play by the rules, and yeah, we don=E2=80=99t want to see the worl=
d go to hell in a handbasket, and they don=E2=80=99t want to see a resurgen=
ce of aggression by anybody.

=C2=A0

JG: Do you think they underst=
and your idea about expansionist jihadism following us home?

=C2=A0

HRC: I don=E2=80=99t know tha=
t people are thinking about it. People are thinking about what is wrong wit=
h people in Washington that they can=E2=80=99t make decisions, and they wan=
t the economy to grow again. People are feeling a little bit that there=E2=
=80=99s a little bit happening that is making them feel better about the ec=
onomy, but it=E2=80=99s not nearly enough where it should be.

=C2=A0

JG: Have you been able to emb=
ed your women=E2=80=99s agenda at the core of what the federal government d=
oes?

=C2=A0

HRC: Yes, we did. We had the =
first-ever ambassador for global women=E2=80=99s issues. That=E2=80=99s per=
manent now, and that=E2=80=99s a big deal because that is the beachhead.

=C2=A0

Secretary Kerry to his credit=
has issued directions to embassies and diplomats about this continuing to =
be a priority for our government. There is also a much greater basis in res=
earch now that proves you cannot have peace and security without the partic=
ipation of women. You can=E2=80=99t grow your GDP without opening the doors=
to full participation of women and girls in the formal economy.

=C2=A0

JG: There=E2=80=99s a link be=
tween misogyny and stagnation in the Middle East, which in many ways is the=
world=E2=80=99s most dysfunctional region.

=C2=A0

HRC: It=E2=80=99s now very pr=
ovable, when you look at the data from the IMF and the World Bank and what =
opening the formal economy would mean to a country=E2=80=99s GDP. You have =
Prime Minister [Shinzo] Abe in Japan who was elected to fix the economy aft=
er so many years of dysfunction in Japan, and one of the major elements in =
his plan is to get women into the workforce. If you do that, if I remember =
correctly, the GDP for Japan would go up nine percent. Well, it would go up=
34 percent in Egypt. So it=E2=80=99s self-evident and provable.

Hillary Clinton has taken her furthest and most public step away from=
President Barack Obama, describing his decision against helping build a =
=E2=80=9Ccredible=E2=80=9D force that could battle the Assad regime in Syri=
a early on as a =E2=80=9Cfailure.=E2=80=9D

=C2=A0

In an interview with The Atla=
ntic, she also rejected the core of Obama=E2=80=99s self-described foreign =
policy doctrine and stood firmly with Israel in the Gaza conflict.

=C2=A0

The interview was conducted e=
arly last week before Obama authorized airstrikes in Iraq, and it is one of=
the longest Clinton has given on policy since she stepped down as Secretar=
y of State early in 2013. At the end of the week, Obama, in his own one-on-=
one interview with New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, reiterated his vi=
ew that early arming of Syrian rebels in that conflict was a =E2=80=9Cfanta=
sy.=E2=80=9D He=E2=80=99s expressed that view repeatedly over recent months=
.

=C2=A0

The Clinton interview =E2=80=
=94 lengthy and detailed =E2=80=94 is consistent with a view of American ex=
ceptionalism that she has discussed throughout her book tour this summer.=
p>

=C2=A0

Syria, where the civil war ha=
s contributed to the current conflict in Iraq, was on track to become a cle=
ar flash point between Clinton and Obama before she even left the administr=
ation. But her comments make clear how much of a divide there is between th=
e two on the topic.

=C2=A0

=E2=80=9CThe failure to help =
build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators o=
f the protests against Assad =E2=80=94 there were Islamists, there were sec=
ularists, there was everything in the middle=E2=80=94the failure to do that=
left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled,=E2=80=9D Clinton s=
aid in the interview with The Atlantic=E2=80=99s Jeffrey Goldberg last week=
, amid images of a world on fire across American television screens.

=C2=A0

The temptation will be to cha=
racterize Clinton as calibrating against a president whose poll numbers are=
sinking and as a the globe has plunged into chaos, with a downed jet in Uk=
raine and the U.S. pulled back into military action in Iraq, where Islamic =
State fighters have gained strength and where conflict has threatened Kurdi=
sh allies of the U.S.. And there is no question she is making these remarks=
as Obama=E2=80=99s agenda is being dictated by world events, and as critic=
s are questioning his goal of trying to minimize U.S. intervention overseas=
.

=C2=A0

His foreign policy doctrine a=
s a whole has been slammed by his critics as too timid, too slow to respond=
, too passive instead of proactive.

=C2=A0

Yet the reality is that Clint=
on has always been more of a hawk than Obama, and the interview is less abo=
ut her triangulating away from him than talking about her views on policy. =
For an almost-certain presidential candidate who has viewed the world throu=
gh a different lens than the president and whose aides have insisted she is=
being blunter about her views than the canned version of herself in the 20=
08 presidential campaign, the separation from him was, as Goldberg himself =
notes, only a matter of time.

=C2=A0

A recent POLITICO battlegroun=
d poll showed Clinton=E2=80=99s own numbers as Secretary of State have take=
n a hit, coming after months of Republican focus on Benghazi but also as in=
ternational events have dominated the news.

=C2=A0

On Obama=E2=80=99s self-descr=
ibed foreign policy doctrine =E2=80=94 =E2=80=9CDon=E2=80=99t do stupid shi=
t,=E2=80=9D or =E2=80=9CDon=E2=80=99t do stupid stuff,=E2=80=9D if, as Gold=
berg noted, uttered in public =E2=80=94 Clinton was blunt: =E2=80=9CGreat n=
ations need organizing principles, and =E2=80=98Don=E2=80=99t do stupid stu=
ff=E2=80=99 is not an organizing principle. =E2=80=A6 I think he was trying=
to communicate to the American people that he=E2=80=99s not going to do so=
mething crazy. I=E2=80=99ve sat in too many rooms with the president. He=E2=
=80=99s thoughtful, he=E2=80=99s incredibly smart, and able to analyze a lo=
t of different factors that are all moving at the same time. I think he is =
cautious because he knows what he inherited, both the two wars and the econ=
omic front, and he has expended a lot of capital and energy trying to pull =
us out of the hole we=E2=80=99re in.=E2=80=9D

=C2=A0

She added, =E2=80=9CI think t=
hat that=E2=80=99s a political message. It=E2=80=99s not his worldview, if =
that makes sense to you.=E2=80=9D

=C2=A0

On the question of the raging=
conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, she said, =E2=80=9D I=
f I were the prime minister of Israel, you=E2=80=99re damn right I would ex=
pect to have control over security [on the West Bank], because even if I=E2=
=80=99m dealing with [Mahmoud] Abbas, who is 79 years old, and other member=
s of Fatah, who are enjoying a better lifestyle and making money on all kin=
ds of things, that does not protect Israel from the influx of Hamas or cros=
s-border attacks from anywhere else.=E2=80=9D

=C2=A0

A source familiar with the in=
terview said Clinton=E2=80=99s team gave the White House a warning that it =
had taken place. Clinton aides would not explain the timing, other than des=
cribing the interview as one intended to promote her book, =E2=80=9CHard Ch=
oices.=E2=80=9D It may not have been a specific effort to escape from the c=
reeping shadow of global chaos that has stretched over the White House, but=
it will be viewed that way.

=C2=A0

Still, the comments were with=
a columnist who is widely viewed as the pre-eminent voice of the moderate-=
right foreign policy establishment.

=C2=A0

And Clinton did not denounce =
the president - she made clear she =E2=80=9Cadvocated=E2=80=9D for arming t=
he Syrian rebels, but acknowledged there was no way to know with absolute c=
ertainty whether it would have made a difference.

=C2=A0

=E2=80=9CI did believe, which=
is why I advocated this, that if we were to carefully vet, train, and equi=
p early on a core group of the developing Free Syrian Army, we would, numbe=
r one, have some better insight into what was going on on the ground,=E2=80=
=9D she said.

=C2=A0

=E2=80=9CTwo, we would have b=
een helped in standing up a credible political opposition, which would prov=
e to be very difficult, because there was this constant struggle between wh=
at was largely an exile group outside of Syria trying to claim to be the po=
litical opposition, and the people on the ground, primarily those doing the=
fighting and dying, who rejected that, and we were never able to bridge th=
at. =E2=80=A6 So I did think that eventually, and I said this at the time, =
in a conflict like this, the hard men with the guns are going to be the mor=
e likely actors in any political transition than those on the outside just =
talking. And therefore we needed to figure out how we could support them on=
the ground, better equip them, and we didn=E2=80=99t have to go all the wa=
y, and I totally understand the cautions that we had to contend with, but w=
e=E2=80=99ll never know. And I don=E2=80=99t think we can claim to know.=E2=
=80=9D

=C2=A0

The topic of Syria has been f=
raught between the Clintons and Obama for much of the last 18 months. At a =
closed-press event for Sen. John McCain=E2=80=99s institute last year, as P=
OLITICO first reported, Bill Clinton, in a question-and-answer session with=
the senator, said that Obama should act more forcefully to help the Syrian=
rebels and that any president risked looking like a =E2=80=9Ctotal fool=E2=
=80=9D if they over learned from public opinion polls.

=C2=A0

With Goldberg, Hillary Clinto=
n pushed back when he asked whether Obama could be accused of =E2=80=9Cunde=
rreaching=E2=80=9D in his foreign policy approach.

=C2=A0

=E2=80=9CYou know, I don=E2=
=80=99t think you can draw that conclusion,=E2=80=9D she said. =E2=80=9CIt=
=E2=80=99s a very key question. How do you calibrate, that=E2=80=99s the ke=
y issue. I think we have learned a lot during this period, but then how to =
apply it going forward will still take a lot of calibration and balancing.=
=E2=80=9D

=C2=A0

Still, over the last 18 month=
s, Clinton has crept around the edges of separation from the unpopular pres=
ident in whose Cabinet she served, but the interview marks the most declara=
tive daylight between them. Clinton discussed the suggested plan to arm Syr=
ian rebels, an idea she and then-CIA head Gen. David Petraeus both pushed, =
as one of the fights she=E2=80=99d lost internally.

=C2=A0

But now she is using the word=
=E2=80=9Cfailure,=E2=80=9D a pointed description that, according to severa=
l people familiar with her thinking, dovetails with her frustration with th=
e administration in recent months.

=C2=A0

A number of Democrats have pr=
ivately insisted for months that while they expected Clinton to move away f=
rom Obama on the margins of foreign policy, it would be risky to separate t=
oo broadly. That risk? Affronting Democrats who did not support her in the =
2008 presidential primary against Obama, and whose backing she=E2=80=99ll n=
eed.

=C2=A0

Clinton pointed to growing an=
ti-Semitism in Europe as she defended Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netan=
yahu, and said, =E2=80=9CI think Israel did what it had to do to respond to=
the rockets. =E2=80=A6 Israel has a right to defend itself. The steps Hama=
s has taken to embed rockets and command-and-control facilities and tunnel =
entrances in civilian areas, this makes a response by Israel difficult.=E2=
=80=9D

=C2=A0

Her successor, Secretary of S=
tate John Kerry, was caught on a hot mic on =E2=80=9CFox News Sunday=E2=80=
=9D appearing to criticize Netanyahu=E2=80=99s description of the Gaza oper=
ation as =E2=80=9Cpinpoint,=E2=80=9D given the number of civilian casualtie=
s.

=C2=A0

=E2=80=9CI don=E2=80=99t know=
a nation, no matter what its values are =E2=80=94 and I think that democra=
tic nations have demonstrably better values in a conflict position =E2=80=
=94 that hasn=E2=80=99t made errors, but ultimately the responsibility rest=
s with Hamas,=E2=80=9D said Clinton.

=C2=A0

=E2=80=9CThere=E2=80=99s no d=
oubt in my mind that Hamas initiated this conflict. =E2=80=A6 So the ultima=
te responsibility has to rest on Hamas and the decisions it made.=E2=80=9D<=
/p>

=C2=A0

Yet, Clinton has clearly deci=
ded that she disagrees with Obama on specific issues, and that the greater =
danger is in silence.

=C2=A0

Poll after poll has shown tha=
t the American public has little stomach for conflict abroad, or for engagi=
ng U.S. troops in drawn-out battles.

=C2=A0

When Goldberg noted that she =
=E2=80=9Csymbolizes=E2=80=9D a type of foreign policy engagement that has d=
windled in popularity in the U.S., Clinton said, =E2=80=9CThat=E2=80=99s be=
cause most Americans think of engagement and go immediately to military eng=
agement. That=E2=80=99s why I use the phrase =E2=80=98smart power.=E2=80=99=
I did it deliberately because I thought we had to have another way of talk=
ing about American engagement, other than unilateralism and the so-called b=
oots on the ground.=E2=80=9D

=C2=A0

She added, =E2=80=9CYou know,=
when you=E2=80=99re down on yourself, and when you are hunkering down and =
pulling back, you=E2=80=99re not going to make any better decisions than wh=
en you were aggressively, belligerently putting yourself forward. One issue=
is that we don=E2=80=99t even tell our own story very well these days.=E2=
=80=9D

=C2=A0

Goldberg said he considers de=
feating communism and fascism to be =E2=80=9Ca big deal,=E2=80=9D to which =
Clinton exclaimed, =E2=80=9CThat=E2=80=99s how I feel! Maybe this is old-fa=
shioned. OK, I feel that this might be an old-fashioned idea =E2=80=94 but =
I=E2=80=99m about to find out, in more ways than one.=E2=80=9D

=C2=A0

Goldberg interpreted that dec=
laration from Clinton as essentially a statement of candidacy. Clinton has =
made similar asides in other interviews, but reading the tea leaves about w=
hether she is going to run sort of misses the point =E2=80=94 everything in=
her actions suggests she already is.

In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times, President Barack=
Obama defended his administration=E2=80=99s foreign-policy approach in the=
Middle East. In Syria, Obama said the idea that arming rebels would have m=
ade a difference has =E2=80=9Calways been a fantasy.=E2=80=9D

=C2=A0

The president=E2=80=99s inter=
view with op-ed columnist Thomas Friedman, published online Friday, offered=
an inherent rebuke of Hillary Clinton, whose memoir revealed that the form=
er secretary of state wanted to arm moderate Syrian rebels in the nascent s=
tages of the war. In a newly published interview with The Atlantic given be=
fore Obama=E2=80=99s interview, Hillary Clinton said the failure to build a=
strong rebel force against the Assad regime =E2=80=9Cleft a big vacuum, wh=
ich the jihadists have now filled.=E2=80=9D

=C2=A0

The president, though not men=
tioning his former secretary of state by name, said such a plan was unlikel=
y to work and was never going to happen.

=C2=A0

=E2=80=9CThis idea that we co=
uld provide some light arms or even more sophisticated arms to what was ess=
entially an opposition made up of former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and =
so forth, and that they were going to be able to battle not only a well-arm=
ed state but also a well-armed state backed by Russia, backed by Iran, a ba=
ttle-hardened Hezbollah, that was never in the cards,=E2=80=9D the presiden=
t said.

=C2=A0

When asked to explain the U.S=
. military response to the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the mountains o=
f northern Iraq, Obama said there=E2=80=99s =E2=80=9Can obligation=E2=80=9D=
to prevent genocide of the Yazidis at the hands of the Islamic State of Ir=
aq and the Levant. Obama repeated the line that he doesn=E2=80=99t want the=
U.S. to become the Kurdish air force, adding that it=E2=80=99s up to Iraqi=
s to unify and maintain a stable government.

=C2=A0

=E2=80=9CWe=E2=80=99re not go=
ing to let [ISIL] create some caliphate through Syria and Iraq, but we can =
only do that if we know that we=E2=80=99ve got partners on the ground who a=
re capable of filling the void,=E2=80=9D Obama said.

Hillary Clinton says she expects her view of America=E2=80=99s role in=
the world to be tested in the future =E2=80=9Cin more ways than one,=E2=80=
=9D a comment fueling speculation about her presidential ambitions.

=C2=A0

In a wide-ranging foreign pol=
icy interview with The Atlantic=E2=80=99s Jeffrey Goldberg the former secre=
tary of state and possible Democratic presidential frontrunner agreed with =
Goldberg when he said that America=E2=80=99s defeat of =E2=80=9Cfascism and=
communism is a pretty big deal.=E2=80=9D

=C2=A0

=E2=80=9CThat=E2=80=99s how I=
feel! Maybe this is old-fashioned,=E2=80=9D she said, adding, =E2=80=9COka=
y, I feel that this might be an old-fashioned idea, but I=E2=80=99m about t=
o find out, in more ways than one.=E2=80=9D

=C2=A0

In Goldberg=E2=80=99s view, t=
hat was a likely nod at a 2016 run.

=C2=A0

But Clinton =E2=80=94 who has=
been on tour promoting =E2=80=9CHard Choices,=E2=80=9D her new memoir abou=
t her time at the State Department =E2=80=94 has in other interviews made s=
imilar comments about her future, though nothing concrete about a White Hou=
se run.

=C2=A0

She also has indulged =E2=80=
=9Chypothetical=E2=80=9D questions about what a secretary of state would br=
ing to the presidency.

=C2=A0

A spokesman for Clinton did n=
ot immediately respond Sunday to an emailed request for comment on her stat=
ement.

Hillary Clinton is stepping away from President Obama on foreign polic=
y.

=C2=A0

The likely Democratic preside=
ntial candidate is distancing herself more sharply than ever before from so=
me important facets of President Obama's foreign policy that evolved un=
der her watch as secretary of state.

=C2=A0

That includes calling the adm=
inistration's lack of engagement in Syria a "failure" and que=
stioning Obama's guiding doctrine.

=C2=A0

In an interview with the Atla=
ntic magazine published Sunday, Clinton diverged notably from her public re=
cord of support for decisions made by the White House during her tenure, as=
she acknowledged key areas of disagreement between her and President Obama=
.

=C2=A0

Indeed, Clinton outright dism=
issed President Obama's guiding doctrine on foreign policy, characteriz=
ed repeatedly in media reports as, "Don't do stupid stuff," r=
ejecting that it could even be considered an "organizing principle.&qu=
ot;

But, she qualified, "I t=
hink that that's a political message. It=E2=80=99s not [Obama's] wo=
rldview."

=C2=A0

"I think he was trying t=
o communicate to the American people that he=E2=80=99s not going to do some=
thing crazy," Clinton said, adding that she considers Obama "incr=
edibly smart" and "thoughtful."

=C2=A0

Still, Clinton was willing to=
offer up her own organizing principle: "Peace, progress, and prosperi=
ty."

=C2=A0

Clinton also used strikingly =
harsh language =E2=80=94 including the word "failure" =E2=80=94 t=
o assess the administration's efforts to prevent the growth of ISIS, th=
e jihadist group with roots in Syria which is now driving conflict, and thr=
eatening genocide, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

=C2=A0

The United States has respond=
ed within the past week with airstrikes and relief drops. But, Clinton said=
, the current situation might have been prevented had the U.S. aided groups=
fighting the oppressive government led by President Bashar Assad, a positi=
on Obama opposed.

=C2=A0

"I know that the failure=
to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the orig=
inators of the protests against Assad=E2=80=94there were Islamists, there w=
ere secularists, there was everything in the middle =E2=80=94 the failure t=
o do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled," Cli=
nton said.

=C2=A0

Clinton's remarks hint at=
a political conundrum she would face should she run for president. While h=
er tenure as secretary of state would be central to her claim to the presid=
ency, Clinton will also need to tactfully create separation between her ind=
ividual role and the administration for which she worked, which has been do=
gged by low approval ratings and could be a drag on her bid.

=C2=A0

Clinton is currently wrapping=
up a nationwide tour to promote her memoir, Hard Choices, which detailed h=
er tenure as secretary of state. She plans to spend the last three weeks of=
August in the Hamptons with former President Clinton.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ratcheted up her language su=
pporting America's strongest Middle East ally, saying the world opinion=
is "historically tilted against Israel."

=C2=A0

Clinton said this week in a s=
weeping interview published in The Atlantic on Sunday that the nearly month=
-long conflict in Gaza has been "effectively stage-managed" by th=
e terrorist group Hamas.

"It=E2=80=99s the old PR problem that Israel has,&qu=
ot; Clinton said. "Yes, there are substantive, deep levels of antagoni=
sm or anti-Semitism towards Israel, because it=E2=80=99s a powerful state, =
a really effective military. And Hamas paints itself as the defender of the=
rights of the Palestinians to have their own state."

=C2=A0

"So the PR battle is one=
that is historically tilted against Israel," she added.

=C2=A0

Since fighting began July 8, =
more than 1,900 Palestinians and 67 Israelis have been killed, many on the =
Palestinian side being civilians, according to The Associated Press. Thousa=
nds have been wounded.

=C2=A0

"There=E2=80=99s no doub=
t in my mind that Hamas initiated this conflict" for political leverag=
e, Clinton said, noting the difficulty placing blame for civilian deaths in=
the "fog of war."

=C2=A0

"The ultimate responsibi=
lity has to rest on Hamas and the decisions it made," she said, later =
adding, "I would not put Hamas in the category of people we could work=
with."

=C2=A0

Clinton, who in her book Hard=
Choices touts her diplomatic work securing the last long-term cease-fire i=
n 2012, noted that her husband, former President Bill Clinton, who is &quot=
;adored in Israel," got Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to g=
ive up territory and highlighted her own ability to work with the Israeli l=
eader.

=C2=A0

"Dealing with Bibi is no=
t easy, so people get frustrated and they lose sight of what we=E2=80=99re =
trying to achieve here," she said.

=C2=A0

When asked why Secretary of S=
tate John Kerry had spent so much time focusing on the Israel-Palestinian s=
ituation while Islamic extremists captured large portions of Iraq and Syria=
, Clinton was frank on the U.S. commitment to Israel.

=C2=A0

"As the U.S., as a U.S. =
official, you have to pay attention to anything that threatens Israel direc=
tly, or anything in the larger Middle East that arises out of the Palestini=
an-Israeli situation. That=E2=80=99s just a given," she said.

=C2=A0

=C2=A0

=C2=A0

=C2=A0

Calendar:

=C2=A0

=C2=A0

Sec. Clinton's upcoming appearances as r=
eported online. Not an official schedule.